• For rivers, roads, pathways etc, use an "S" direction. This you have.
• The trees in the background are lighter in value and all appear as just simple masses.
• Grayed greens make a more realistic nature scene.
• Variation of colors in the water. The green color helps maintain color harmony.
• Nice drawing in general of trees. Mountains etc.
• Nice impressionist background. Simplified the most possible.

There isn't much to say in regard to "defects". What I'm about to say is a more personal choice than criticism.

You wanted to depict this place with the bridge as is. If it were a commission then I would stay faithful to the actual look. Otherwise, I would make use of my artistic license and make modifications to improve the look.

Artists are to feel free to change things around a bit. You may state that it would change the way it was originally, but we should convey the mood and feeling of a place without being over concerned of the way it's supposed to look. People don't maintain a perfect visual memory of the location of elements in a scene. It's the general impression and mood that counts.

When I paint town scenes, I remove telephone polls, change the nature of trees and relocate them, add flowers, etc. The reason I say this is that I felt that the bridge had too much of a straight line and ran diagonally across the painting stopping the viewer's eye from entering into the painting. Even though I was able to look over the bridge, the location was uncomfortable and too predominant.

I feel that the middle ground of your painting was more interesting than the foreground where the bridge was because of the nice tree shapes and warm greens in that area, so I couldn't resist and moved the bridge backwards. now it actually serves as a stop from exiting the picture and leads me right to those nice trees. It's your painting and you could easily argue with me and say that you preferred the bridge to be the center of interest and I would lose the argument. :-)

I darkened the foreground. Look closely at the river. There is a gradation from dark to light, giving a feeling of distance.

I made the middle ground a bit more interesting by adding an autumn tree and highlights.

Additional comments:

Excellent stuff - keep it up!