Middelfart and the Little Belt Bridges

The Old Little Belt Bridge Of 1935, Where Visitors Can Walk On Top Of The Steel Arches On Guided Bridge Walks, Above The Little Belt With Its Harbour Porpoises · Middelfart, Region of Southern Denmark

Middelfart is a small harbour town on the western tip of Funen, where two bridges cross the Little Belt, the narrow, deep strait between Funen and Jutland. The Old Little Belt Bridge, opened in 1935, is a long steel truss bridge carrying both trains and a road on arches high above the water; it was one of the great engineering works of its time and made the first fixed link between the two halves of western Denmark. The New Little Belt Bridge, a white suspension bridge of 1970, carries the E20 motorway a little to the south. People come for the bridge walk, a guided climb along the top of the old bridge's steel arches with a harness, roughly 60 m above the sea, and for the Little Belt itself: deep currents, wooded shores and one of the densest populations of harbour porpoises in Danish waters, seen from the shore or on boat trips. The town adds a harbour front, a ceramics museum and the forest and deer park of Hindsgavl. The honest caveat: the bridge walk is expensive, weather-dependent and has age and height limits, and the porpoises are small and shy.

The Old Little Belt Bridge and Middelfart's harbour front, between Funen and Jutland, Middelfart, Region of Southern Denmark, Denmark

The town, the harbour front and the shore paths are open all the time and free. The guided bridge walk runs most of the year on a pattern of several departures a day in summer and fewer, mostly weekend, departures in the colder months, with cancellations in strong wind, thunder or ice - check the current schedule and book a time slot in advance. Porpoise boat trips run mainly from spring to early autumn and depend on the weather - confirm. Middelfart station is on the main Copenhagen-Odense-Fredericia line: roughly 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours by direct train from Copenhagen, about 20-25 minutes from Odense and roughly 1 hour 15 minutes from Aarhus. By car it is about 2 hours from Copenhagen on the E20 via the tolled Great Belt Bridge.

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