Peru's Bridges: Puente Francisco Bolognesi (1)

Eventually, we arrived in the lovely city of Arequipa, which is home to a variety of old and new bridges.

Puente Francisco Bolognesi is an old stone masonry closed spandrel arch bridge. It consists of five spans over the busy La Marina Blvd and Rio Chili.

This bridge resembles the Puente de Toledo in Madrid with its round turrets between the arches. However, the Puente Francisco Bolognesi has a delicate iron railing instead of a heavy stone parapet along the edge of the deck.

Puente Bolognesi is the oldest bridge in Arequipa. Construction began in 1577 by the architect Juan de Aldana and it was completed in 1608 at a cost of 150,000 pesos.

Peru's Bridges: Puente Francisco Bolognesi (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.