Border Beneath the Bridge 2

The Old Rhine Bridge — Alte Rheinbrücke Vaduz–Sevelen — is more than a covered wooden bridge. Stretching 443 feet across the Rhine, it physically connects Vaduz, Liechtenstein, with Sevelen, Switzerland, making the river beneath it an international border. The present bridge was completed in 1901, replacing an earlier wooden crossing built on the same site in 1871.

What makes it especially remarkable is what survived. Covered wooden bridges once appeared throughout this stretch of the Rhine Valley, but this is the last surviving wooden bridge across the Alpine Rhine. It even served as the principal road connection between Vaduz and Sevelen until a modern concrete bridge took over in the 1970s; today, the old bridge is reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

There is something beautifully old-fashioned about crossing from one country into another inside a long timber corridor. No monumental gateway announces the border — somewhere beneath that wooden roof, Liechtenstein simply becomes Switzerland, while the Rhine continues underneath.