The 516 Arouca, named for its 516-metre length and its home in the town of Arouca, an hour's drive south of Porto, links the Aguieiras waterfall with the Paiva gorge and is the latest adventure on offer in the Arouca Geopark, known for its extreme sports.
The crossing takes about 10 minutes if you stop to soak in the panoramic views of the waterfall, the gorge and the river rushing past through the open grating underfoot, or four minutes if you're muttering prayers and hurrying to reach the far side.
It's a Tibetan-style suspension bridge held up by steel cables and two enormous V-shaped towers, standing 1,692 feet long, if that makes it feel more manageable.
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The Paiva river flows 176 metres (576 feet) below the open metal grating, which is three feet wide.
The handrails are made of rigid mesh, and the deck is built from 127 four-metre modules.
Designed by the Portuguese studio Itecons, the project took three years, with construction wrapping up in July 2020.
It sits in the eastern part of the geopark, close to the Paiva walkways, the Areinho and Vau beaches, and the villages of Alvarenga, Canelas and Espiunca.
"This bridge is meant to appeal to a wide range of people: technology enthusiasts, nature lovers, and those who crave extreme thrills," reads a statement from the local council, the municipality of Arouca, released last year.
The 516 Arouca claimed the title of longest pedestrian suspension bridge from the Charles Kuonen suspension bridge in Switzerland, which stretches 1,621 feet and opened in 2017. That bridge offers views of the Matterhorn, the Weisshorn and the Bernese Alps.
The longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the United States is the SkyBridge in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which spans 680 feet across a valley in the Great Smoky Mountains.
It opened in May 2019, but was briefly closed in June 2020 after one careless visitor tried to slide down the glass panels baseball-style, cracking the floor.
If height rattles you more than length does, the world's highest glass-bottomed suspension bridge is the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge in China, which lets visitors bungee jump from a platform 853 feet (260 metres) up.
