Rakotz Bridge, the Devil's Bridge in Saxony

The Rakotz Bridge, also known as Rakotzbrücke Bridge, is located in the heart of Saxony and often referred to as the Devil’s Bridge due to its illusory effect. The bridge’s ends are formed by thin rock spiers with octagonal columns in basalt, forming such a perfect arch that it seems to have been made by the devil himself! Legend has it, it was! Its shape is so perfect, visitors at the time claimed that no human hand could ever have built it.

The Rakotz Bridge, located in the heart of Saxony, inside the Azalea and Rhododendron Park Kromlau, just within the the municipality of Gablenz in Germany was specially designed to create a perfect circle when reflected in the water beneath it. It was commissioned in 1860 by knight Friedrich Hermann Rotschke, a landowner of the entire area, who decided to connect the two banks of the river with a rather unusual and bizarre structure. Being the only lender of the entire park, where he carefully planted thousands of specimens of azaleas and rhododendrons that still bloom today, he began the design of a “bridge without barriers” - an architectural structure very different from anything of its kind in those days.

Construction on the Rakotz Bridge took over 10 years due to the peculiarity and eccentricity of the project, and this is when rumors began to circulate. Popular belief claimed that the bridge was the gateway to the devil - a mystical-symbolic meaning that stuck. It was known as the passageway between paradise and hell, and so the name Devil's Bridge came to be.

This semicircle of impeccable precision reflects into the water, creating a perfect circle from any viewpoint. Today it is considered one of the most mysterious and fascinating bridges of Europe.

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