Europe’s longest wooden bridge opens on Lake Zurich

The new bridge was built with wood felled by hurricane Lothar Keystone

Pedestrians wanting to cross Lake Zurich can now walk across the longest wooden bridge in Europe, which was officially opened on Friday. The 841-metre bridge spans the lake between Rapperswil and Hurden and lies on an ancient pilgrim trail dating from the Middle Ages.

The new footbridge provides walkers with a welcome respite from the noise and fumes of the 23,000 vehicles which cross the lake daily between Rapperswil and Hurden.

But the new walkway provides more than a break from pollution – it provides access to the “Heilig Hüsli”, a small chapel on an island near Rapperswil which previously could only be reached by boat.

The bridge’s construction mirrors that of a much earlier walkway. A bridge existed for five centuries between the two towns until 1878.

Pilgrims heading to Einsiedeln in canton Schwyz and Santiago de Compostela in Spain used the older bridge as a shortcut from the 14th century onwards.

Bridge building is an old tradition in the area. Archaeologists have found remains of walkways dating back to the Bronze Age, from around 1500 BC, and not unlike similar finds along the Thames in Britain.

Today’s modern bridge cost SFr3 million to build. The architects made the most of a recent disaster – hurricane Lothar in December 1999 which felled huge swathes of Swiss forests – to obtain wood for the project.

Most of the pillars supporting the bridge came from trees knocked over by the storm, although trunks were imported from France and Germany for some of the longer sections. Sixty tonnes of steel were also required to guarantee the stability of the bridge as well as to protect it from lightning strikes.

swissinfo with agencies