Spreuerbrücke

The Spreuerbrücke, or Chaff Bridge, is a covered wooden bridge across the Reuss in the western part of Lucerne's Old Town, Switzerland. It was first built in 1408 and takes its name from the chaff and straw that millers and townspeople once threw into the river from it. Unlike the Kapellbrücke, which was largely rebuilt after the 1993 fire, the Spreuerbrücke retains much of its historic timber structure and is the older of the two surviving covered bridges in the city. It was originally part of the lower town's defences and served as a working crossing for the milling quarter. At its centre sits a small chapel, the Nollikapelle, added in the 1560s, and a weir known as the Nadelwehr lies just upstream and still regulates the water level of the lake. The roof triangles carry Kaspar Meglinger's Dance of Death, a cycle of paintings created between about 1626 and 1635. Death appears in each panel in the company of people from all stations of life, including popes, emperors, merchants and children, and the sequence includes verses and moralising captions. The series was commissioned in the aftermath of plague and war and reflects the Catholic Counter-Reformation tone of 17th-century Lucerne. Roughly 45 panels survive in the cycle today. The paintings have been restored several times, most recently in the 20th century, and the bridge is protected as a Swiss heritage site. The experience is open-air and self-guided: visitors walk the span slowly, reading the panels in order. The bridge is quieter than its better-known neighbour and offers a close view of the river, the weir and the Old Town skyline from the western side.