Happy Valentine's Day! We wanted to celebrate the annual day
of love by sharing the story of our love locks.
A couple of weeks ago, Bob and I attached a little gold
padlock to the new Love Lock Bridge near the Riverwalk in San Antonio to lock
our love forever, then kissed and took a selfie to mark the occasion. Again. On
our lock was written in Sharpie “RG & LH,” inside a hand-drawn heart
pierced by Cupid’s arrow. It was actually a chain-link fence along the river,
but it was covered with hundreds of locks of other couples declaring their
undying love.
It was the 15th time we have declared our forever love by
placing a lock on a bridge. Normally we are not super-sentimental people, but
love locks are a ritual we have grown to cherish during our travels, leaving
our mark on bridges and walls all over the United States, Europe and Mexico (so
far).
The 1st Lock: Paris
It all started in the summer of 2016, when I was planning to
accompany Gavin’s scout troop on a week in the romantic city of Paris. Before
we left, Bob gave me a padlock and asked me to write our initials on it and
hang it on the Pont des Arts Bridge, which was famous for having so many
lovers’ padlocks affixed to it that it groaned under the weight, and
authorities had had to cut them off. He had seen the bridge during a weekend he
spent alone in Paris during a business trip, and thought it would be nice to
have our own lock there.
Surprised and touched by this rare sentimentality, I happily
obliged. After the troop set off for the next leg of their trip, Switzerland, I
went down to the River Seine and searched for the love locks. The city had
decommissioned the Pont des Arts Bridge in 2015 because of the weight of the
locks, but they were all around it, thousands of lovers’ padlocks tumbling down
the bannisters and onto the railings of the river walls beyond. Across the
river from where I stood was a magnificent view of the Louvre. I locked our padlock,
blew a kiss to Bob across the ocean, and took pictures. I’m sure if the locks
get too heavy, authorities will cut them off again. But until then, RG & LH will grace the Pont Neuf on
the River Seine in Paris.
It was a grand, and small, gesture of love. It felt good. It
made me think about why I had married this man, what we had experienced
together, and how special our life was.
Hamburg, Germany
Three years later, we were visiting my brother Patrick in
Hamburg, Germany, and walking along the Elbe River when we saw another bridge
covered with lovers’ locks. We didn’t realize the tradition had expanded beyond
Paris. Since we were leaving the country the next day, we went and found a
hardware store to buy a lock, wrote RG
& LH with a Sharpie and enlisted Patrick to hang it for us. A few weeks
later, he sent a photo of our lock on the bridge. (Thanks, Pat!)
And with that, we were off, searching for love lock bridges,
or creating our own, everywhere we went. While on a five-week tour through
Europe, we hung locks everywhere.
London, England
In London, we strolled across the Jubilee Bridge, a
pedestrian bridge, and listened to a street musician playing Caribbean drums
while we snapped our padlock in a spot all its own and kissed above the Thames
River.
Rome, Italy
After a long day of sightseeing as a family in Rome, when
Gavin’s and my feet were aching from miles of walking, Bob trekked back in the
rain to hang a lock from an iron bannister on a bridge crossing the Tiber
River.
Sorrento, Italy
Farther south in Sorrento, on a solo weekend trip while I
was off doing genealogy searching with some Italian cousins, Bob discovered an
iron fence with love locks along the Mediterranean coastline about a mile from
his hotel during his morning run. He spent the afternoon searching for a
padlock and a Sharpie, but a torrential downpour forced him to wait to return
until the next morning, when a break in the rain gave him time to quickly walk
there and fix the lock in place before heading for the train station.
Hydra, Greece
In Greece, during a daylong boat trip, Hydra, an idyllic
fishing village where bleached-white houses climb up the mountainside from the
azure Mediterranean, offered herself as a entrancingly scenic host to our love
lock.
Ludlow, Vermont
The tradition continued when we returned to North America.
First, we affixed a love lock to a bridge in Ludlow, Vermont, where we have our
second home.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Then we headed down to live in Mexico for the first six
months of 2019. During a two-night on break the road trip south, we took the
streetcar to hang a lock on a chain-link fence in New Orleans, under a banner
that read Love Locks NOLA and in front of the Eiffel Society, a club built from
parts of a former Eiffel Tower eatery.
Leon, Mexico
In Mexico, the first city we stayed in was Leon, which had a
love locks bridge at one end of the Causeway of Heroes, a wide pedestrian
walkway that serves as the gateway into the old city, and we put our lock
through the padlock of another lock at the top. The bridge looked down upon a
highway, with mountains in the distance.
Lake Chapala, Mexico
We never found a good spot in Tlaquepaque, where we lived
for four months, or Guadalajara, the city next door. But we visited beautiful
Lake Chapala, half an hour south, for a day trip and walked out to the end of a
fishing pier to hang our lock on a rusted turquoise railing overlooking Mexico’s
largest freshwater lake. On the way, we had been stopped by announcers for a
local radio station who were broadcasting live, and thus posed for the obligatory
selfie in our new orange Guadalajara T-shirts.
Guanajuato, Mexico
By far the most interesting place to hang our lock was the
magical town of Guanajuato, where there’s an alley so narrow that people can
kiss from across two balconies. There’s a tragic legend of a young man who was
killed for stealing a kiss from the daughter of a rich man. We put up our lock
and kissed across the alley. (Fortunately, Bob survived.)
Montreal, Canada
We lived in Vermont during summer 2019, and took a couple of
trips to Montreal, Canada, hanging one lock on a bridge overlooking Gay Village
and the other on a small bridge in the main pedestrian area along the St.
Lawrence River, looking out at a huge Ferris Wheel.
The Farm, Cascade, Pennsylvania
When we visited The Farm, the
homestead in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania where Lisa’s paternal
grandmother grew up, we hung a love lock from the rusty metal rope that secures
the entrance to the old lane.
Thwarted
We were occasionally thwarted in our efforts to declare our
love by hanging public padlocks. In the beach town of Cambrils, Spain, there was
no official Love Locks bridge, so we scouted the promenade along the ocean but
never found a spot where we could thread a padlock. There was an official Love
Locks spot in Barcelona, but we didn’t have time to visit it. We have looked
several times while in Burlington, VT, but have not yet found a spot for a
padlock.
Part of the tradition of the Love Locks is to throw the keys
into the river to seal your eternal love, but we don’t do that because we don’t
think that particular gesture of affection is good for the health of the fish
or the river. We still hold all the keys to each other’s hearts.
Up Next ...
We have just arrived in Mexico City and will be looking for
a place to hang our 16th lock. We’ll keep you posted!
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