It’s time to say a sad goodbye to Paris’ oh-so-iconic “love locks”
The day before I flew off to Europe for my honeymoon with my brand-new husband, my brother gave me a padlock. He and his girlfriend had been to Paris the month before, and they had snapped a padlock on the famous Pont de Arts bridge. For those who aren’t in the know, it’s become a tradition for couples in love visiting the City of Lights to fasten a padlock on the side of this pedestrian bridge to symbolize their love. The hubs and I, according to tradition, snapped our lock on to the grate panel on the side of the bridge and then looked into each other’s eyes all mushy-gushy-like and proceeded to make out for, like, the next thousand hours. Ah, l’amour, am I right?
Well it looks like the love locks are going the way of the dinosaurs. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the bridge can no longer bear the weight of the close to one million locks that call it home. All that metal adds up, and we do live in a world in which the laws of physics, like, exist. So this Monday workers will begin the process of cutting off every lock fastened to the bridge.
Though the city regularly removes the locks, tourists in love are quick to fill in the gaps with new locks, so now all the locks are going away, and the gaps in the bridge will be replaced by wooden panels designed by French street artists (cool!!!), and then, eventually, glass panels that will make “love locks” impossible to attach.
It’s always sad to say goodbye to a tradition, but we must think of the bridge! It’s a historic and important part of Paris and with the locks, it was bearing four times the load permitted on the bridge.
The “love lock” phenomenon has spread to other bridges in Paris, and the city is working to get the locks off these bridges as well.
We’ll be okay, you guys. We may have lost our locks, but we’ll always have our love and our awesome trip memories!
