Pont des Arts / Notre Dame

Paris is well-known as the City of Love and romance is pumped through the
air. There is a legend that if you and your love put a lock on a bridge and throw the key into the river, your love with become eternal.
I’m down for the lock tradition but the reality is, the weight of the locks is damaging
the bridge and the rust from all the keys is harming the ecology of the Seine. The Pont des Arts bridge was originally built in 1804 but re-built in 1984. We were given a lock from my Mom that I knew would be perfect for the lock bridge. We carried it with us everyday in case we happened to be in the neighborhood of the bridge. Well, a few days ago, I get a lovely message from Aimee saying the Pont des Arts bridge has partially collapsed due to the weight of the padlocks. MERDE!

I have waited so long to add our lock and now the bridge was damaged? Just my luck! However, the French worked their magic and by yesterday the bridge was all fixed. I made this extremely shaky video of us adding our lock to the bridge.

The only space we could find was to lock ours on top of another lock.

I’m serious when I say there must be a million locks on this guy!

Thank you nice Americans who offered to take this photo of us

There were people on the bridge selling locks and even had portable engraving machines if you wanted to add your names.

We took a short walk to Notre Dame

I mentioned the memorial plaques I wanted to see in Postman’s Park in London. Paris has this one dedicated to a man who died saving a drowning woman from the Seine.

We found Quasimodo’s house!

It’s impossible for me to jump without making crazy face!

Did you know there is a playground next to Notre Dame? Liv wanted to stay all day.

We walked around the Latin Quarter which is home to Sorbonne University. It would be very cool if Olivia chose to study in Paris. I took this photo of her standing in front of Sorbonne as a gentle reminder.