A few days ago, I was taking a nice walk after lunch on Pont des Arts when I came across a rather huge number of padlocks hanging from the bridge’s sides. At first, I was puzzled. Who would hang so many padlocks to such a nice bridge and mess with the visual harmony of the scenery? Closing-up, I started noticing names written/engraved on most of them. Was it some sort of happening or some student party gone wrong? Giving a closer look to the names, a pattern began to emerge. The names always came in pairs. Two first names: a boy’s first name and a girl’s first name. Oh… Let me guess… lovers right?
When I got back to the office, I showed the pictures I got around to a few coworkers who haven’t had a single clue about what these padlocks mean. So I rubbed my Internet magic lamp (Bing, used to be something called Google before) and the answer was revealed to me.
These padlocks symbolize love hence their names, lovelocks (any relationship with Lovelock, Nevada ?). On Valentine’s Day, lovers would go for a nice romantic stroll to the bridge, hang their padlock engraved with their names to the side of the bridge and throw the key in the Seine (like it wasn’t polluted enough already…) and walk away leaving behind their ever-lasting love symbol behind (!).
OK, I let the Parisian inside of me speak here. I have nothing against love, far from it. However, I don’t like pollution, be it visual (ugly padlocks all over the sides of a wonderful bridge in the heart of Paris), physical (so many rotting keys in the Seine…) or otherwise.
I am calling out to all the padlock hangers out there. How about keeping your love to yourself for once or go back to engraving your names on trees (you do know that you hurt them by doing so right?). Let me take this idea back. I have a better one: permanent tattoos! That way, you will always see that symbol wherever you go and not on every full moon when you walk on Pont des Arts by pure coincidence and then remember that you had a padlock on the side of the bridge only to find out that the city janitors broke it and trashed it…
(view comments)
