Let's continue our walk around the Louvre area. So, we pass the Pyramids courtyard on to the Square Courtyard and exit from the Seine side to the Pont des Arts bridge. "Pont" in French means "bridge" so let's just call it Pont des Arts :)

You’ll find the bridge close to the northern façade of the Louvre.

This is the first iron bridge in Paris over the Seine. The bridge naming dates back to the First Empire period when the Louvre was called the Palace of Arts.

There is a direct perspective over Institut de France (part of which is the famous French Academy of Sciences), and a picturesque view of the city from both sides with the Eiffel Tower from one hand side and the towers of Notre Dame de Paris (Notre Dame Cathedral) from the other.

Maybe you had heard about the "love locks" bridge in Paris. That used to be the Pont des Arts. Young (and not only) couples in love, mostly tourists, were clasping a lock onto the bridge railings and were throwing the key down in the river Seine. That was supposed to symbolize their eternal love. The number of padlocks were estimated to almost 1 million with some 45 tonnes of metal. As you can imagine the bridge wasn't really designed to support such a heavy side rails and in 2014 a section of the railing collapsed under the weight of love (locks).

The Paris mayor’s office decided then to remove all the padlocks and to replace grills with transparent plexiglas panels. Frankly speaking I am very happy with this decision. Not only because the view is much more beautiful now but also because I have never understood this idea of locking love. I consider that love cannot be locked, sealed, closed, etc.

What do you think? Do we need to reassure ourselves with a closed "love padlock"? 

I’m done for today! See you soon! For now, we remain in the same city area.