Michigan Roads - Zehnder's Covered Bridge

Zehnder's Covered Bridge



Heading east from M-83 in Frankenmuth on Covered Bridge Rd. into the garishly overwrought housebridge that tries to fit in with the garishly overwrought Bavarian Inn Lodge. (It's so overwrought, it needs two successive nouns both describing a place of lodging.) What's up on the second level that requires gabled windows, and how does one get there?


A pair of WB photos. The bridge was only built in 1979, so with the advantage of modern structural and architectural knowledge, it would have been easy to create a sleek, streamlined structure with the charm of antique covered bridges and the convenience of clean, flat planking for pedestrians and cars without bowing or otherwise warping. Instead, it hits you over the head with a Bavarian cream pie and slugs you in the gut with German chocolate cake. Actually, now I'm hungry. But I'm not eating at the Inn Lodge.


Looking south and north along the Cass River. Speaking of hideously overwrought, there's a separate, similarly modern pedestrian bridge just downstream from the covered bridge and just upstream of M-83. Why not make it part of the M-83 bridge? Because then it wouldn't be possible to provide the fake Bavarian baby blue and pink... You know what, this is just awful. Completely awful. Tacky, hideous, coarse, and not in any way Bavarian. I'm regretting even starting this page.


I did my best to bring out the beauty of the Cass River from the upstream shore, looking south at the bridge (riverine west, overall) and north fom that spot. Something on this page has to be worth viewing.

Back to Michigan Roads
Back to Roads