In Barranco, you may stumble upon a wooden bridge called the ‘Bridge of Sighs’. If you’re able to walk across the bridge while holding your breath, your wish will come true. Read on to learn about this iconic bridge.
How long can you hold your breath?
A quick question: how far can you run holding your breath? How about a 44-meter dash across a 3-meter-wide wooden bridge, bearing in mind you’ll be dodging photographers eager to take your photo, street-sellers peddling candyfloss and other sweet treats, and at least two wedding parties dressed up to the nines. But if you can succeed – and I know you will – then you’ll be rewarded by making a wish that will surely come true.
Where are we? Well, the ‘Bridge of Sighs’, the iconic wooden bridge or El Puente de los Suspiros, that spans the Bajada de los Banos cobbled path – it used to be a river – that winds its way down to the sea from Barranco, that romantic suburb of Lima.
And talking of romance, let’s turn our thoughts to this charming wooden bridge so popular with young lovers keen to hold their breath – as well as their hands – as they make their way across.
Built in the 1800’s
Appropriately, it was inaugurated on St. Valentine’s Day – February 14th, 1876, linking Barranco’s Calle Ayacucho with the Church of the Hermitage now sadly in disrepair. Constructed of wood, it had the indignity of being burnt down by the very unromantic Chilean troops after the battle of Chorrillos in January 1881, but was rebuilt again – slightly shorter – only to find itself destroyed once again by an earthquake in 1940. Still, romance never dies, and it was brought back to life once again.
Where the name comes from
Rumour has it that it is called the ‘bridge of sighs’ after the daughter of a rich merchant living nearby who fell in love with a street cleaner. Her father forbade the relationship and confined her to her room. All she could do was look out of her window at the bridge, and sigh each time she thought of her lover.
Inspiration for artists
In 1960 the Peruvian composer of Creole music, Chabuca Granda, wrote a waltz El Puente de los Suspiros. The lyrics describe a little bridge hidden between the foliage, a sleeping bridge between the murmur of love – and embraced by memories – a place of beautiful silence. The song goes on to compare the bridge to a poet who awaits the singer every afternoon. The Peruvian poet, Cesar Calvo, who was a close friend of Granda, claimed he was the poet she was referring to.
In 1992, Barranco Municipality dedicated a small park and statue to her on the far side of the bridge. In 2014, the bridge was closed for 6 months a thousand soles spent on restoring it. I have to say it could do with a lick of paint now. In 2017, Granda’s body of musical work was declared part of the cultural heritage of Peru.
The “Bridge of Sighs” around the world
But let’s return to our pretty little bridge and the provenance behind the name, ‘bridge of sighs’. Apart from ours in Barranco, there are four other bridges that bear this romantic name: in Venice, Oxford, Cambridge and Pittsburgh. All take their inspiration from the beautiful Ponte dei Sospiri in Venice.
The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ in Venice
This beautiful, enclosed, white limestone bridge has windows with stone bars and passes over the Rio di Palazzo, connecting the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace. It was designed in 1600 by Antonio Contino, whose uncle Antonio da Ponte designed the Rialto Bridge.
Prisoners were marched from the court at the Doge’s Palace to their prison cells by way of this bridge, the most famous of the more than 400 bridges that span the canals and waterways of this most romantic of Italian cities. As they crossed the bridge on their way to jail, legend has it they would sigh at their last sight of the city before imprisonment.
This ‘Bridge of Sighs’ features heavily in the plot of the 1979 film, A Little Romance. One of the characters tells of a tradition that if a couple kisses in a gondola beneath the bridge at sunset, while the church bells toll, they will be in love forever.
A ‘Bridge of Sighs’ in Oxford and Cambridge
The Oxford ‘Bridge of Sighs’ links the Old and New Quadrangles of Hertford College (to the south and the north respectively), designed by Sir Thomas Jackson and completed in 1914. The building on the southern side of the bridge houses the college’s administrative offices, whereas the northern building is mostly student accommodation. The bridge is always open to members of the college, who can often be seen crossing it.
The Cambridge bridge can be found at St. Johns College, incidentally my father-in-law’s old college.
Until the early 19th century, all Cambridge colleges were located on the east side of the river Cam. St. Johns, rapidly expanding, built New Court, an accommodation block on the river’s west side and needed a bridge to connect both sides of the College. The architect Henry Hutchinson designed the bridge in the popular gothic revival style of the time, and it was opened in 1831. No doubt the two great universities compete over who has the most beautiful bridge.
The city of Pittsburgh ‘Bridge of Sighs’
Our final ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is to be found in the great American city of Pittsburgh. Home to over 400 bridges, it constructed its own ‘Bridge of Sighs’ in the late 19th century, spanning Ross Street and connecting the Allegheny County Courthouse to the county jail.
Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed Pittsburgh’s homage to the Venetian bridge using rusticated blocks of granite in the style that came to bear his name, Richardsonian Romanesque. The architect considered the Pittsburgh project his finest work, although he died two years before its completion in 1888. Anticipating future plans to re-grade the city and lower the streets around the courthouse and jail, Richardson dictated that the finished masonry walls be installed on what were originally basement walls. When the streets were lowered 16 ft. in the early 1900s, his ‘Bridge of Sighs. was now that much farther off the ground and more closely imitating the Venetian original. No doubt convicted felons sighed also as they were taken down to the cells.
Granda’s Poem
And so, let’s return to our very own ‘Bridge of Sighs’. Not as grand as those in Oxford, Cambridge, or Pittsburgh, but with a romantic charm of its own. For a romantic moment, let’s hold our breath and allow the words of Chabuca Granda to wash over us:
El Puente de los Suspiros
Little bridge hidden among foliage and longings
little bridge laid over the wound of a ravine
Thoughts sprout again
Your woods hold to the heart
To your banisters.
Little bridge asleep and among babblings of love
Embraced to memory, cliffs, and stairways
Bridge of the sighs, I want you to keep
In your pleasant silence
My secret.
My bridge is a poet who waits for me
With its steady wood every afternoon
And he sighs and I sigh
He receives me and I leave him alone over his wound
His ravine.
And the old wives are telling
about the unfair distance of the lover
His defeated courage defeated by the Ficus
of buried roots in his loved one.
My bridge is a poet
Who waits for me with its steady wood,
every afternoon and he sighs and I sigh
He receives me and I leave him, alone over his wound
His ravine.
And the old wives
Are telling
About the unfair distance of the lover
His defeated courage Defeated by the Ficus
Of buried roots in his loved one.
Little bridge asleep and among babblings of love
Embraced to memory cliffs and stairways
Bridge of sighs,
I want you to keep in your pleasant silence
My secret.
