The Maria Valeria Bridge (Hungarian: Mária Valéria híd; Slovak: Most Márie Valérie) over the Danube connects the Hungarian city of Esztergom with the Slovak city of Štúrovo/Párkány. It is named after Princess Marie Valerie of Hungary.
The Maria Valeria Bridge was designed by the Hungarian civil engineer János Feketeházy, who had recently designed the Elisabeth Bridge in Komárom, and built between 1893 and 1895 by Cathry Szaléz, a Budapest building contractor of Swiss descent.
The 514 m long structure was the second longest bridge in Hungary after the Margaret Bridge (Margit híd) in Budapest when it opened.
It consisted of five crescent-shaped truss arches and a short bridge over the road on the right bank, which had the following spans: 83.5 + 102.0 + 119.0 + 102.0 + 83.5 + 16.2 m. The bridge was 9.55 m wide with the two walkways running outside the supports. The large central arch had a construction height of 14.0 m.
Since its opening in 1895, the bridge has been destroyed twice: the first time in 1920, and the second time on December 26, 1944, when it was blown up like other bridges during the retreating German troops. Due to the poor bilateral relations between Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Slovakia, it took almost 60 years before the reconstruction of the Maria Valeria Bridge could begin.
After lengthy negotiations, a bilateral agreement on reconstruction was concluded on September 16, 1999. The EU provided a loan for half of the construction costs (€10 million) under the PHARE programme.
The new bridge was designed by the engineering firms Pont-TERV and Dopravoprojekt. The two outer, still existing arches were reinforced and reused. New, welded and bolted steel arches were built for the three middle spans, which looked similar to the old bridge. The roadway was widened so that the bridge is now 12.3 m wide. The roadway support is now an orthotropic plate. Shipping demanded that the bridge be raised significantly, so the existing pillars were reinforced and enlarged. The clearance height is now 9.91 m above HWS 2010 (highest shipping water level).[1] On 11 October 2001, the bridge was reopened to the public.