Mike N.
Yelp
This impressive twelfth-century structure has straddled the Danube for more than 900 years, and it's a masterpiece of medieval engineering. The oldest of its kind in Europe, this 310-meter-long bridge is now used only for pedestrian/bicycle traffic and offers the best views of the Danube and Regensburg.
The Stone Bridge was built in only eleven years, probably in 1135-46. Louis VII of France and his army used it to cross the Danube on their way to the Second Crusade. It served as a model for other stone bridges built in Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries: the Elbe bridge (now Augustus Bridge) in Dresden, London Bridge across the Thames, the Pont d'Avignon across the Rhône and the Judith Bridge (predecessor of the Charles Bridge) across the Vltava in Prague. It remained the only bridge across the Danube at Regensburg for about 800 years until the construction of the Nibelungen Bridge in 1930s. For centuries it was the only bridge over the river between Ulm and Vienna making Regensburg into a major center of trade and government.
Brückturm (Bridge Tower) is the last surviving of the bridge's three towers. It's very impressive to know the 17th-century tower clock with its dependable mechanism has kept time since 1652.