TOURIST SNAP: THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE ON A DEVILISH DAY

This medieval bridge has three names. The first is Ponti di Contessa Matilde di Canossa who lived 1046 to 1115. This bright woman owned properties on both sides of the river and decided that a bridge was the answer. It was a rather daring idea but it worked, hot spit.

Reconstruction took place between the years 1281 and 1328 whereupon it was named Il Ponte Maddalena because pretty much everything was named along those lines at the time. It is called a "donkey back" bridge because of the high arches.

And then it is called the Devil's Bridge because a builder made a deal with the devil, something about paying the devil to help him along because he was behind schedule on the bridge work. Somehow the builder escaped paying the devil and so the devil hangs around there waiting to be paid. More fool he, right?

We set out for the bridge in bright sunshine with the car so covered in yellow pollen that I could have written "Blip" on it with a finger, snapped that and stayed at home. But --
The Devil's Bridge is not far away so off we went. As we neared it, black clouds rolled in, lightning flashed and the rain came down in buckets. Those blobs on the photograph are rain drops on the lens. Clearly, the devil did not want a picture of this bridge on BlipFoto.