Marcelo Fernan Bridge
Far and away, our country's most photogenic bridge. It was completed in 1999, and it's the longest center-span extradosed cable-stayed bridge in the world (whatever that means). I love this little park underneath the bridge on the Mactan side. It's like that place in San Francisco where every tourist goes to have their picture taken with the Golden Gate Bridge. If it could just be cleaned up it would seriously be on par with its Golden Gate Bridge equivalent, and a must-visit photo spot for tourists coming to Cebu.
Mandaue-Mactan Bridge
The older of the two bridges to Mactan is also the more neglected. Not neglected by the Department of Public Works and Highways (despite its crusty-looking design it is actually well-maintained), but neglected by the public's attention. It has never been given any nice name, it doesn't have a Wikipedia article, and it doesn't have public parks at either side of it where I could take pretty pictures. I had to disobey a No Tresspassing sign just to get the picture you see here. It's a decent picture though. I only wish it were a sunnier day.
I think Bamban Bridge is more picturesque than Fernan Bridge. :-)
ReplyDeleteI thought you walked the san juanico bridge. :P I had to read the whole article again.
ReplyDeleteyou're always a crazy walker. :)
eugene: I didn't forget about that Bamban Bridge, but decided it doesn't have the length and the surroundings to put it in league with Marcelo Fernan. :p
ReplyDeletecarlo: I'll walk across the San Juanico Bridge someday. You'll see...
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ReplyDeleteI have a question dude. On which side of the Fernan Bridge is this park located? Last Saturday I was looking for this specific spot believing it was in the Mandaue City side but the farthest I got was in the park right under the bridge.
ReplyDeleteThere was a fence that prevented me to go where your photo would have been taken, and there was high cogon grass there... unless this was in the Lapu-Lapu City side which I thought was impossible because there were a lot of houses and no sign of a park on that side.
Weird.
This park is on the Lapu-Lapu side, just follow the road that goes under the bridge rather than across it. The surrounding area is sadly populated by unsightly houses, but the park is surrounded by a fence.
ReplyDeleteThere's a similar park on the Mandaue side but it's much less accessible and not as attractive as the one on the Lapu-Lapu side. I'm guessing (just guessing) that these parks are run by the city governments, and after Lapu-Lapu made their nice one Mandaue followed their lead and made their own. :p
After looking over the picture and seeing the mountains of Cebu at the background, I finally had my Homer Simpson "doh!" moment.
ReplyDeleteI'll attempt to look for it again when we go back to Cebu (dunno when that will be... hopefully soon). And then take a picture just like yours! LOL.
And yeah, Mandaue's park at it's side was not really nice.