Activities | Food & Wine

The Bosphorus Bridge

Istanbul , Turkey

Where: Istanbul, Turkey, spanning the Bosphorus Strait.

Stats: 4,954 feet long; 210 feet above sea level.

Awe Factors: Completed in 1973, this suspension bridge, the only bridge in the world linking two continents (Europe and Asia), has been in the works since 490 B.C., when the bridge was made of a fleet of boats. Talks of a suspension bridge began in 1900, and again in 1931 by Nuri Demirağ, the architect who manufactured the first plane in Turkey; it was finally commissioned in 1967 and completed six years later. A tennis match played on the bridge in May 2005 between Venus Williams and Turkish grand slammer İpek Şenoğlu was the first-ever competition to take place between two continents.