The Tiber and its Bridges

Although not as beautiful and famous as the Seine, the Danube or the Thames, Rome’s river Tiber can still boast a number of very beautiful bridges and also has a unique attraction in its Isola Tiberina, a small island in the river in the middle of the city.

Rome’s most famous bridges are the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II and the Ponte Sisto, together with a bridge that cannot even always be seen, the Ponte Rotto, or the “Broken Bridge”.

Special mention needs to made of the Ponte Milvio, which did not really become famous till some years ago, when it more or less became the protagonist of an Italian movie, in which the main characters padlocked a chain to the bridge and threw away the key in order to underline their eternal love for each other.

The Tiber has its origin somewhere high up in the Apennine Mountains in the region of Umbria, north of Rome and crosses the region Lazio and the city of Rome itself to end up in Ostia. (It is in fact possible to travel all the way by boat from Rome to the ruins of Ostia Antica.)

The Tiber used to flood the city and the area around its banks used to be extremely marshy, until the walls were not built around it.