The 10 Most Iconic Bridges in The World

The Golden Gate Bridge has been San Francisco's calling card since 1937: 2.

7km of International Orange suspension bridge strung between the city and the Marin Headlands.

It's that rare landmark that looks better in bad weather - the towers rising out of rolling fog are the classic view.

Walk or cycle the deck, then take it in from Baker Beach, Fort Point or Battery Spencer.

London's most recognisable river crossing, a pair of neo-Gothic towers linked by a pale blue lattice and a glass-floored high walkway.

The bascules still lift around 800 times a year for tall ships, and the best views come from the south bank looking north.

Inside, the Victorian engine rooms hold the original steam machinery that raised the road.

The steel arch Sydneysiders call the Coathanger, carrying eight lanes, two rail tracks and a pedestrian walkway high above the harbour.

The classic view pairs it with the Opera House from Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

Climbers can walk the outer arch on a harnessed BridgeClimb, 134 metres above the water.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the world's longest suspension bridge when it opened in 1883, and its stone Gothic towers and web of steel cables remain New York's most distinctive crossing.

An elevated timber boardwalk runs above the traffic for the full 1.

8km span, with Lower Manhattan directly ahead the whole way from the Brooklyn side.

It is free, open at any hour, and takes about half an hour to walk.

The last medieval bridge left on the Arno, lined with jewellers' shops that jut out over the water on timber brackets.

Vasari's covered corridor runs above the shopfronts, linking the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace so the Medici could cross the river without mixing with the city below.

Butchers occupied the shops until 1593, when they were evicted for the smell and replaced by goldsmiths.

A three-tier Roman aqueduct thrown across the Gardon gorge in the first century, and the tallest the Romans ever built at just under 49 metres.

The honey-coloured limestone was cut so precisely that it needed no mortar.

You can swim and kayak in the river below, which is also the best place to take in its full height.

Charles Bridge has carried foot traffic over the Vltava since 1402, running dead straight from the Old Town gate tower to the castle bank beneath a parade of thirty blackened baroque statues.

At dawn, with mist on the river and Prague Castle rising behind, it's one of Europe's great city walks; by mid-morning it's one of Europe's great crushes, buskers and all.

A 150-metre gold walkway in the hills above Da Nang, apparently held aloft by two giant weathered stone hands.

It sits at 1,400 metres inside the Ba Na Hills resort, reached by one of the longest cable cars in the world, and on clear mornings the whole walkway floats above a sea of cloud.

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest and best known of the four crossings of Venice's Grand Canal, a single stone arch completed in 1591 after a succession of wooden predecessors collapsed.

Two rows of shops run the length of its span, and the steps up either side open onto views down the canal in both directions.

The market on the San Polo bank has traded fish and produce for centuries.

A covered timber footbridge zigzagging across the Reuss in Lucerne, built in 1333 and hung with painted gable panels telling the city's history.

The octagonal stone water tower beside it is the image on every Lucerne postcard.

Much of the bridge was rebuilt after a fire in 1993, but the effect from the riverbank is unchanged.