Late September through mid-October is the time to come — the oaks and maples in the river bottoms turn copper, the corn comes off the fields, and the Madison County Covered Bridge Festival takes over Winterset the second weekend of October. The festival draws around 50,000 people for three days of bus tours of the bridges, craft stalls on the courthouse square, parade, and old-time fiddle music.
Summer is busy with romance-tourism traffic chasing the Bridges of Madison County connection. Winter is quiet and atmospheric — snow on the painted timbers, no other cars on the gravel roads — but several of the bridges are closed to vehicles year round and the back roads can ice up fast.