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A view from the bridge

Walking across a bridge offers an entirely different experience than zipping over it in a car with windows tightly shut. Wind ruffles hair, and air - sometimes fresh, sometimes gritty - tickles skin and nose.

There's a slight element of danger, too. Vehicles whizzing by on one side, swirling water waiting beneath. You're connected to the environment thanks to stone and metal, and the imaginations of dreamers who engineered great things.

Not all bridges are open to pedestrians, for instance the Sunshine Skyway and the Howard Frankland. Bridges in Florida, though, often sit alongside old ones now used as fishing piers or lookouts.

The lure of walking over water is captured in these vintage postcards of bridges in Florida, New York and Vermont. A historic city, a big-city skyline and a natural wonder seen from another perspective.

- JANET K. KEELER, Times staff writer

The oldest steel arch bridge in the state was designed in 1911. It sits 163 feet above the river and other than regular maintenance the bridge today is exactly as it was when it was first built. Visit in early October when the trees are aflame in red, yellow and orange.

Head west and you'll see the awesome skyline of Manhattan, go east and you're probably going home or for a walk on the Brooklyn Promenade. The bridge, used in many movies and a memorable Absolut vodka ad, has connected the boroughs since 1883.

Completed in 1927, the bridge is named after the two lions on the west end designed by an Italian sculptor. The local landmark reflects the city's Spanish heritage and connects downtown with the city's eastern neighborhood on Anastasia Island.

- Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

- Tower and Millennium bridges over the Thames, London

- Ponte Vecchio over the Arno, Florence, Italy

- Bridgeton Covered Bridge, Parke County, Ind. (Parke County is home to 32 covered bridges.)

- Lupu Bridge over the Huangpu River, Shanghai, China (elevators take visitors to the top of the arch bridge)

- Sydney Harbor Bridge, Australia

- Victoria Falls Bridge over the Zambezi River, along the Zimbabwe and Zambia border