Howrah Bridge

If Kolkata has one image, it's this: 26,000 tonnes of riveted steel thrown across the Hooghly without a single nut or bolt in its main structure, and without a single pylon in the water. Opened in 1943, the Howrah Bridge (officially Rabindra Setu) is one of the busiest cantilever bridges on earth: an unending river of pedestrians, barefoot porters with impossible loads on their heads, taxis, buses, and handcarts, all flowing between Howrah station and the city.

Walking across is free and takes about fifteen minutes, though you'll want longer. Go at dawn, when the flower market below is in full cry, mist hangs on the river, and the steel catches the first light. The pedestrian walkways run along both sides; the view down the Hooghly, with ferries cutting wakes and the Vidyasagar Setu hanging in the haze downstream, is pure Kolkata.

Notes: The bridge is a sensitive installation and photography on it has historically been restricted; rules are enforced unevenly, but be discreet, especially with tripods or long lenses. Shots of the bridge from the flower market, the ghats, or the ferry are unrestricted and frankly better anyway.

The city's steel signature