Bridge at Kioupri

The Byzantine Bridge of Kioupri (the Turkish word for bridge) is the only surviving old bridge in Edessa. It stands opposite the town hall, a single-arched structure 28 metres long with a 3-metre-wide deck, built from local porolith stone. The bridge has been reconstructed many times due to the destructive force of the Edessaios River. During the Ottoman period it lay outside the city, surrounded by a plane-tree forest. Its construction date is uncertain: the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi mentioned a bridge here in 1668, calling the area ‘Valley of the Bridge’. Some argue it is Byzantine, though one historian suggests it was built later, for military reasons, during Ottoman rule. The bridge once carried the Via Egnatia before it climbed towards Agras. It appears in the works of the writer Menelaos Lountemis, and Nikos Kourkoulos filmed scenes here for the movie ‘To Fragma’. Each year on Epiphany, 6 January, the metropolitan bishop throws the cross into the water for the Blessing of the Waters.