Most Powstańców Śląskich, Kraków

Most Powstańców Śląskich is the road bridge across the Vistula joining Kazimierz and Podgórze. Its name honours the Silesian uprisings; Kraków gave it that name in 1971, when a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the eastern abutment. This crossing has had an unusually turbulent life.

Work on its predecessor, Krakus Bridge, began in 1908. During construction, a fifty-two-metre iron section plunged into the river on the eighteenth of February 1911, when moving ice struck an inadequately secured structure. The bridge nevertheless opened on the twentieth of January 1913, carrying a new tram route as well as road traffic.

German forces destroyed it during their withdrawal in January 1945. Rebuilding began the next month, and the restored crossing reopened on the twenty-third of February. In 1971, engineers built a replacement beside the still-working old bridge, then transferred the new deck onto the original 1913 piers in a single night. Those old piers remain beneath the present steel bridge, which is 148 metres long and carries traffic lanes, trams and pedestrian pavements.