Tromostovje (The Three Bridges)

The Three bridges where constructed due to a particular follow of events. There was an earthquake in 1895 and because Ljubljana was under the government of Austria, the Austrians were paying for the rebuilding of the town. Actually the bridge, which was single at that time, didn't suffer from the earthquake, but a scenario was made to make the Austrians believe otherwise. Thus the city of Ljubljana got money to rebuild the bridge. The funds were used to enlarge the transmission capacity of the bridge by building two extra bridges on each side of the existing one for the pedestrians. This was designed by Plecnik and is believed to be of unique construction.

The bridge is considered as Ljubljana's oldest, it was even called the Old Bridge in a document from 1280, which is one of the first to bear witness of its existence. Later it was called the Lower bridge as opposed to the Upper bridge which is presently called the Shoemakers bridge.

The Lower bridge was rebuilt from scratch after a fire in 1657, and a wooden Cross was erected on it, most probably to protect the bridge from further disasters. There is a funny story to tell about that Cross. In front of the Cross there was a sanctuary lamp which the tobacco pedlars used to light their pipes with, thus offending the authorities of the Church. So in 1796 it was removed and taken to the Franciscan Church. All appeals by the pedlars to get the Cross back remained futile.

There was a lot of pedestrians crossing the bridge, so it was the perfect place to have a shop for tradesmen and pedlars. Actually this enabled people of no importance to get established and become rich. In 1842 the wooden bridge was in a very poor state and Giovanni Picco was commissioned to build the present central one in stone.

maintained by mm