Cable-stayed bridge Rion-Antirion (the official name is the bridge of Charilaos Trikoupis) bridge across the Gulf of Corinth, which connects the Peloponnese (the city of Rio, the municipality of Patras) and mainland Greece (G. Antirion). This is one of the most impressive and grandiose masterpieces of modern engineering.

The idea of creating such structures arose in the 19th century, as the communication between the mainland and the Peloponnese was carried out only by ferry or via narrow the isthmus of Corinth, and this was clearly inadequate. Such a bold proposal belonged to the Prime Minister the Charilaos Trikoupis, but because such a project was too great a luxury for the Greek economy, at that time it was not implemented.

In addition to financial issues a major obstacle for the construction were seemingly unsolvable technical problems due to natural features of the local area – great depth of the Bay (about 65 m), soft bottom, seismic activity in the region, a high probability of a tsunami and the movement of tectonic plates, therefore every year the Corinthian Gulf extends about 30 mm. what is the length of the bridge had to be around 3 km, also created additional difficulties.

By the mid 90-ies of the 20th century the technical solution was finally found. Work on the construction site preparation and strengthening of the bottom began in the summer of 1998, and in 2000 began the construction of the pylons-pylons. The total cost of the works amounted to 630 million euros.

The length of the bridge Rion-Antirion is 2880 m and a width of about 28 m. two lanes in both directions, emergency lane and a pedestrian path. The structure consists of five spans (the longest of them is 560 m) held four massive pylons.

The Grand opening of this engineering miracle took place on 7 August 2004 on the eve of the summer Olympic games in Athens. Particularly impressive spectacle bridge produces at night, when the light turns on.