Happy
Valentine’s Day to my uber sweet wife, Kathryn! Last summer when we were in Paris,
I took her to the Pont
des Arts bridge, otherwise known as, the “lover’s bridge.” It is here several
years ago that love-struck
sweethearts began locking padlocks onto the chain link fence of the Pont
des Arts, which crosses from the left bank to the Louvre
museum. The love padlocks, called cadenas
d’amour, have since multiplied to the point where there are
thousands of these love tokens, each engraved with a message of love, locked to
the bridge’s chain link fence. After locking the love padlock to a chain link or
another lock, it is customary for the lovers to toss the keys into the Seine River
as a sign of their eternal devotion. It
is also believed if the lovers kiss each other while on this bridge,
they’ll be happy together forever.
