London
I moved away from London in 1986, and it's unlikely that I'll ever live permanently in the capital again. It's a bit of a shame, but it is what it is. I tend to go back at least once a year, but rarely have the time to sketch or paint any of the bridges. In fact there's just this one painting of the Albert Bridge: -
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| London, Albert Bridge Toll Booth |
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| London, Tower Bridge |
Rightly so, however it's not without its other bridges of interest. The Albert Bridge, sandwiched between Chelsea Bridge and Battersea Bridge, was designed and built in the 1870s, then improved and made safer by the great Sir Joseph Bazalgette, pioneer of the London sewer system. It's a pleasingly pretty confection which looks as if it could have been spun out of royal icing and should be sitting on top of a wedding cake. I painted it because I loved the little toll booths, one each side of the road on both sides of the river.
Prague
Prague is home to one of Europe’s
great remaining Medieval Bridges, the Charles Bridge. Construction began in the
middle of the 14th century, and lasted for about a hundred years. It’s
named after King Charles IV of Bohemia, who went on to become Holy Roman
Emperor. Good for him. It has 16 arches, and each one is shielded by an ice
guard. I look at the Charles Bridge, especially the gatehouse on the castle
side in the first picture below, and I start to get just an inkling of what the
original London Bridge probably looked like. It’s completely pedestrianised,
and has gatehouse towers on both sides, although they’re not identical. The
Charles Bridge is, rightly, one of Prague’s most popular tourist attractions,
and in my experience it’s always crowded.
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| Prague Charles Bridge |
This next sketch was a purely fortuitous
happening. As I was crossing the Bridge from the Old Town side at about 9 am on
my second day in Prague, I saw this monk, and followed behind him, sketching
furiously. Real monk or dressed up for the tourists? I don’t know, but can’t
help hoping he was the real mccoy, on his way to clock on at the monastery. I
then sketched other figures in. They were all there, but not all together at
the same time, and then details of the bridge and the gatehouse. So to that
extent this is a composite picture.
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| Prague Monk on Charles Bridge |
I didn’t finish this one, and there’s
a good reason for that. I was standing on the old town side of the river, on
the path by the side of the river, sketching away standing up, and it was such
a cold day, and there was an evil wind blowing. After about 15 – 20 minutes, my
fingers were completely numb, and I just couldn’t stay there any longer to try
to finish it.
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| Prague Charles Bridge from Old Town side |
Berlin
When I visit a city for a stay, I
have a short checklist of things I want to see or experience, if the city
offers them to me. These are: -
Ride on a tram
Ride the Metro/Subway
See and sketch its best church
Take sightseeing trip on a riverboat
Find a good, high vantage point from
which to look over the city
Cross and sketch its signature
bridge.
Great cities will offer you the
possibility of doing most, if not all of these. Eastern Berlin has a fantastic
modern tram system, the city has not one but 2 Metro systems in the fabulous U –
and S Bahn, good churches, a great riverboat sightseeing river, and a huge
communist folly in the Alexanderplatz from which to look out across the city.
However the bridges in the centre of Berlin are perfectly nice, but there’s not
a stand out bridge amongst them. After a couple of days I was despairing of
finding a signature bridge. Then I read about the Oberbaumbrucke. The Oberbaum
Bridge opened in 1896, carrying a roadway, and since the opening of the U-Bahn
it has also carried what is now line U1. It’s fanciful design is meant to
represent that this used to be Berlin’s River Gateway.
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| Berlin Oberbaumbrucke |
Graceful and elegant it ain’t, but I
love its power and bombast. It took me just under an hour to make this sketch –
it was a blazing hot day, and my bald spot was burnt by the time I finished it.
Budapest
In a way, Budapest’s Chain Bridge
seems to me to fit it to a tee. It is beautiful, elegant but understated, and
doesn’t really make a fuss about itself, just getting on with the job its been
doing for almost 200 years. It’s a funny thing that most of the bridges across
the Danube which I saw in Budapest do remind me of bridges over the Thames in
London. Specifically, the next two bridges , moving south of the Chain Bridge,
reminded me slightly of Chelsea and Albert Bridges. However the Chain Bridge
itself put me in mined of Hammersmith Bridge. Actually, it’s not that like
Hammersmith Bridge as that bridge stands today. Maybe I was thinking of
pictures I’ve seen of the previous Hammersmith Bridge, which shared its
designer with the Chain Bridge, and Englishman called William Tierney Clark. Even
on a cold November day, a walk across the Chain Bridge from Pest to Buda and back is a pleasure.
You might be struck by the narrowness of the single carriageway roadway across.
Mind you, there were no such things as cars when it was originally designed.
Actually the bridge was blown up by retreating German forces in January 1945,
with only the towers remaining, and it took 4 years of rebuilding before it was
reopened.
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| Budapest Chain Bridge |
Kaunas only has 4 river bridges, and none of them are that spectacular.However I was drawn to the Vytautas the Great bridge, which links the old town of Kaunas to the Aleksota funicular railway. The bridge was built in 1948, after the destruction of the second world war, and during the 50 year Soviet occupation of Lithuania. It must have seemed like a very bleak and miserable time when it was built, but then the Soviets are now long gone, and the bridge is still here.
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| Kaunas - Vytautas the Great Bridge |
One thing that surprised me about Madrid was its seeming lack of bridges. Then when I found the Puente De Toledo, Madrid's signature bridge, I understood why. My picture doesn't do it justice, it's a bueatiful piece of barque - in a city which is not short of beautiful baroque buildings. It's stood over the River Manzanares for over 300 years. But . . . there's just not a lot of river there during the summer.
Amsterdam
Now, one thing you're never short of in Amsterdam is bridges. I think that the official figure I was told was 1281 of them. Most of them are small and very picturesque small bridges crossing the canals, like the one in the picture alongside. The most famous bridge in Amsterdam is probably the Magere Brug, or skinny Bridge. I made the picture on the right on the last day of October in 2018. The sun went behind the louds, and a chill wind sapped the heat from my bones. In the end my hads were starting to shake, so I had to leave the picture slightly incomplete as it is here.
Stockholm
Being spread across 14 islands, Stockholm isn't short on bridges either. Like Amsterdam, all of the bridges that I saw in Stockholm were perfectly pleasing aesthetically, and perfectly functional, but not that memorable - I didn't see what I would think of as a signature bridge. Nonetheless, I did make this sketch which includes the Norrbro, or North Bridge, which connects the opera house with the Royal Palace and Riksdag (Parliament Building) complex. The Norrbro is one of the oldest stone bridges in Stockholm and dates back to the 18th century. It replaced wooden bridges on the same site. And that's about as much as I can tell you about it.
Warsaw
This is the Poniatowski Bridge in Warsaw. As if the impressive look of it wasn't enough, you can also catch a tram on the top. Great!
Riga 2023
This is the railway bridge over the Daugava in Riga. Originally built in 1914 it was shelled during both World Wars, and rebuilt both times. The last rebuilding saw it reopen in 1955.
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