City Daily Photo Theme Day - CHANGE

I love that whenever I return to Paris, I can count on its cobblestoned streets and charming buildings and cafés, being just like I left them. On the other hand, the city of Paris took a bold and necessary step a few years ago when they began removing the once romantic, turned horrific nuisance LOVE LOCKS from the Paris bridges. The sheer weight was causing structural damage not to mention the thousands of locks blocked the view of the Seine. The Pont des Arts was relieved of over 700,000 locks weighing over 93 metric tons! In order to prevent new locks, thick acrylic panels were installed. I share before and after shots. Change is good.

Today I join City Daily Photobloggers around the world as we all post our take on this month's theme. Have a look HERE.

Pas de cadenas d'amour!

The Pont des Arts has always been one of my favorite Paris bridges. This pedestrian bridge built in 1804 has stood the test of time until recent years.  I always enjoyed the street artists and musicians found there. In later years, the bridge became a disaster, loaded to the breaking point with "love" locks and lock salesmen preying on tourists. Eventually the City of Paris had to close the bridge, remove the 45 tons of locks and eventually were able to replace them with glass panels which are hopefully, lock proof. Now we can enjoy the beautiful view again!

Pont des Arts

I never tire of photographing this bridge now that it has been rid of the zillions of horrible "love locks". Merci to the City of Paris for tackling this expensive and time consuming task. Thankfully now more bridges are being rid of the weight and destruction due to the lock craze. Make love... not locks!