Europe’s ‘longest bridge’ is in beautiful city loved by Brits and cost £746.5m to build

The Vasco da Gama Bridge, built in 1995 is the longest bridge in Europe stretching to 17,185 metres. 

The bridge in Lisbon, Portugal was built to reduce the congestion on Lisbon’s 25 de Abril Bridge and removed the need for traffic between the country’s northern and southern regions to pass through the capital.

The project cost £746.5 million and took four years to complete. It was opened in 1998 and named in honour of the 500^th anniversary of Portuguese explorer, Vasco Da Gama’s discovery of a sea route between Europe and India in 1498. 

The Vasco de Gama bridge has a life expectancy of 120 years and has been designed to withstand wind speeds of 250km/h.

It carries six road lanes with a speed limit of 75mph and on windy, rainy, and foggy days the speed limit is reduced to 56mph. There are plans to increase the number of road lanes to eight once the daily average of traffic increases.

The bridge being built in one of the world’s oldest cities and Portugal’s capital makes it popular to visit. Visitors can walk underneath the bridge, where there is also a skatepark and pump track. 

Parque do Tejo is a park that the bridge stands over where locals can jog, cycle, walk their dogs and play a game of football. Those who visit the area often make use of the bridge as a back drop for photographs and selfies. 

In 2023, more than 2.3 million people from the UK visited Portugal, making it the second most visited country after Spain.