Madrid’s bridges over the Manzanares: the back story

About Madrid’s bridges over the Manzanares: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Madrid Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

The Manzanares is a modest river, but Madrid gave it grand bridges: the Renaissance Puente de Segovia, the Baroque Puente de Toledo and, since the riverbanks became the park of Madrid Río, new crossings such as Dominique Perrault’s Arganzuela footbridge.

The Puente de Segovia

When Philip II made Madrid his capital, the road west to Segovia needed a crossing worthy of it. His favourite architect, Juan de Herrera, the builder of El Escorial, designed the Puente de Segovia, built between 1582 and 1584 below the site of today’s Royal Palace. It is the oldest of Madrid’s great bridges, its sober arches a perfect expression of Herrera’s style.

The Puente de Toledo

A century and a half later, the road south to Toledo got a bridge of a very different spirit. The Puente de Toledo, designed by Pedro de Ribera and built between 1718 and 1732, is Madrid’s great Baroque bridge, in the richly carved churrigueresque style, crossing the river on nine arches.

On the Puente de Toledo, Madrid’s two patron saints, San Isidro and Santa María de la Cabeza, look down from their carved stone shrines.

At its centre, two shrines hold limestone statues of Madrid’s patron saints, San Isidro Labrador and his wife Santa María de la Cabeza, carved in 1723 by Juan Alonso Villabrille y Ron with the help of Luis Salvador Carmona. Today the bridge is for people on foot only.

Madrid Río

For decades the riverbanks were lost under the M-30 ring road. When the road was buried in tunnels, the banks of the Manzanares became Madrid Río, a park of paths, gardens and playgrounds running from below the Royal Palace south to the Matadero arts centre, and the old bridges found themselves at the heart of gardens again.

The Arganzuela footbridge

The park brought new bridges too. The most striking is the Arganzuela footbridge by the French architect Dominique Perrault, opened in 2011: two spiralling cones of steel and steel mesh, 278 metres long in all, that carry walkers and cyclists over the river and the Arganzuela Park.

Our advice: walk or cycle Madrid Río from the Puente de Segovia to the Matadero on a weekend morning, cross the Puente de Toledo to see the saints up close, and come back over the Arganzuela footbridge.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Madrid’s bridges over the Manzanares: the back story before you go.