RIO-ANTIRIO BRIDGE
The world's most complex bridge. Built by the Vinci company in 2004, it links the Peloponnese to mainland Greece.
This spectacular 2,252 m-long cable-stayed motorway bridge (Γέφυρα Ρίου-Αντιρρίου/Gefyra Riou-Antirriou) links the city of Rio, in the Peloponnese, with the village of Antirio (population 2,300), in Etolia-Acarnania. Inaugurated for the Athens Olympics in 2004, the project required five years' work and lengthy preliminary studies. Although the Rio Strait is the narrowest passage between the Peloponnese and mainland Greece (after the Corinth Canal!), conditions were not exactly ideal. After much procrastination, the French construction company Vinci was chosen. Vinci's engineers were faced with enormous challenges: linking two tectonic plates, laying the bases (supports) more than 65 m under the sea and on soft ground, and making the structure as flexible as possible so that it could withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake, 180 km/h winds and the impact of a supertanker. The result: four immense piers 141 to 164 m high, 368 guy wires, the largest of which are made up of 70 cables 15 millimetres in diameter, bases 90 m in diameter and 13 m high laid on the bottom of the strait, and a deck 45 m above the water. It takes less than five minutes to drive over all this. But to take advantage of this French technological jewel, you have to pay a toll that many locals consider far too high. So there are still boats between Rio and Antirio (20-minute crossing).
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