Down by the river (Part 2)

There are seven bridges over the river in Cologne. This one is called Südbrücke; it can be used by trains and pedestrians. It was built from 1908 to 1910 and destroyed by bombs in WW II on January 6th, 1945. In 1950 it was completely re-built and opened again for train traffic and walkers.

Where the meadow ends and the river begins you'll find pebbles, sand and shells...

All along the Rhine you will see these markers:

They tell you how many kilometers the Rhine has "on the clock". The starting point (= 0 km) for this chainage is in Konstanz, where the Rhine flows out of Lake Constance.

I walked on in the direction of the autobahn bridge in Rodenkirchen:

It was built from 1938 to 1941 by the engineers Fritz Leonhardt and Paul Bongartz. When it was finished its span of 378 meters made it the bridge with the longest span length in Europe. On January 28th, 1945 it too was hit by bombs and collapsed. In 1952 it was re-opened to traffic. To cope with the increased volume of traffic it was reconstructed from 1990 to 1993 and its width was doubled. Pedestrians can walk over it to the other side, which is what I did.

View from the brigde: