Approaching the Pont des Arts, the footbridge across the river, I saw that work was being done on the bridge. For years its railings had been invaded by so-called love locks, a forced marriage between property of the City of Paris and visitors who love her… sometimes to death.

It was a loveless marriage, as many residents and city authorities saw it. The locks were finally removed. They were temporarily replaced by wooden panels. Now, the wooden panels havebeen removed, and the clear view has been restored. No, more than restored, the view has been improved thanks to the new transparent panels.

The divorce with love locks is final, at least on this bridge. We–residents and visitors alike–can now rejoice in a clear view (beyond the occasional graffiti) as we walk by, linger long or picnic, without being assaulted by pieces of metal declaring that Claudia loves Roberto or Sarah loves Paul or simply that a visitor was here and wished his mark his or presence.

To the south the view of the Institut de France remains unchanged.

I went inside to meet some savants.

(c) 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris’s Pont des Arts Sees Clear After Its Divorce From Love Locks appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

There is general agreement among residents of Paris that love locks are a form of graffiti that defaces the beauty it is intended to glorify. It’s a form of graffiti that nevertheless attracts, fascinates and generally pleases visitors. Many a museum director would love to have their collections as well known to tourists as the collection of metal on what are now referred to as Lock Bridges.

For the administration of the City of Paris, love locks don’t raise esthetic questions as much as cost and security questions since the weighty accumulation of locks on the bridges of Paris damages the host structures and creates safety issues. According to City Hall, over the past few months alone more than 700,000 locks have been placed on Paris’s various lockable bridges, i.e. those with metal grating that serves as the base for the lock virus. Luckily, most of Paris’s central bridges have stone railings.

On the Pont des Arts, the most famous of the lock bridges, a pedestrian bridge with an extraordinary view connecting the Right Bank at the Louvre with the Left Bank at the French Institute, 15 grating panels have already had to be removed for security reasons. The weight of 1100 pounds (500 kg) of locks on a single panel is four times the allowable weight limit for a portion of the railing.

Required to act, the City of Paris yesterday began experimenting with glass panels to replace some of the metal grating. Two have been placed on the Pont des Arts and others will follow.

“Paris is the capital of love, we’re very proud of that, but there are more beautiful ways to show that love then placing locks on a bridge,” said Bruno Julliard, deputy mayor and the official appointed to find what City Hall calls “artistic and ecological alternative solutions.”

The new glass panels are light enough to be supported by the bridge, and their transparency allows for a renewed view of the scenery that attracted people to place locks here in the first place.

It’s a clear reminder of how destructive and unappealing the lock virus has become over the years. Whether the glass panels can be spared more usual forms of graffiti remains to be seen.

“If this experiment proves to be conclusive we’ll extended it to other affected bridges,” said Julliard.

Since August, the City of Paris has also been inviting visitors to show and seal their union with a selfie rather than a lock through #LoveWithoutLocks in the hopes of making them aware of less destructive ways of demonstrating the affiliation between Paris and romance. A long kiss by the river might to do the trick as well.

– September 20, 2014

For a sweeter view of love locks, see this France Revisited video from 2012.

The post A Return to Beauty: The Beginning of the End of Love Locks in Paris? appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The two bridges in the heart of Paris that have been most defaced decorated with love locks are the Pont des Arts, the footbridge and fine-weather picnicking bridge that goes between the Louvre and the French Institute, and the Pont de l’Archevêché, the short bridge behind Notre-Dame that connects the City Island with the Left Bank.

They are presented here in a beautiful audio-slideshow featuring photographs by Joe Wilkins and music and text written, played and read by LaRae Raine Garretson. A France Revisited Production.

(c) 2011, All rights reserved.

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* * *

Paris has historical bridges, elegant bridges, workaday bridges, metro bridges, and pedestrian bridges; it has stone bridges, iron bridges, and 2-, 3-, and 5-span bridges. And it has one most evocative bridge in its Mirabeau Bridge, le Pont Mirabeau, famous not for its beauty or for its view but for a poem that it inspired.

Construction of the Mirabeau Bridge near the southwestern edge of Paris, 1893-1896, immediately preceded that of the far more photogentic Alexandre III Bridge, 1897-1900, and the two are structurally similar. Though unable to compete with the situation, cherubs, gilt, and Belle Epoque elegance the Alexandre III, the Mirabeau nevertheless enjoys the more evocative name since it is the title of Guillaume Apollinaire’s much memorized melancholic poem “Le Pont Mirabeau.”

In that poem of 1912 the bridge reminds the poet of lost love and the passage of time. The text of the poem and more information about the bridge are found further down, but before reading on you can watch this France Revisited® audio slideshow to see images of the Pont Mirabeau and hear a reading of Apollinaire’s poem by Va-nu-pieds.

History: The vast urban overhaul of Paris of the second half of the 19th century, from Napoleon III’s appointment of Baron Haussmann as prefect of Paris in 1853 to the opening of the first two lines of the metro in 1900, involved the construction or reconstruction of more than half of the bridges over the Seine.

Engineering: Connecting the Grenelle quarter of the 15th arrondissement (Left Bank) with the Auteuil quarter of the 16th arrondissement (Right Bank), the Mirabeau Bridge was designed by Paul Rabel, assisted by engineers Jean Résal and Amédée Alby, and executed by the company Daydé & Pillé. The same assisting engineers were responsible for the Alexandre III Bridge, which is based on the same principle of two metal structures buttressing each other to create the balance of the span. The Mirabeau has a central arch of 305 feet with one arch to either side of 106 feet connecting with the riverbank. The Alexandre III primarily consists of a single 350-foot arch.

Allegory: On the Mirabeau, four bronze allegorical sculptures by Jean-Antoine Injalbert decorate the pillars like figureheads on the bow and stern of two boats, one on the Left Bank side facing upstream, one on the Right Bank side facing downstream. On the Left Bank side, Navigation holds a harpoon at the stern while Commerce blows a golden trumpet at the bow. On the Right Bank side the City of Paris sits facing those approaching the capital at the bow while Abundance holds a flame at the stern. The arms of the City of Paris decorate the inner railing above the statues.

Abundance’s flame is an odd echo of the 1889 quarter-size replica of the Statue of Liberty raising her own flame just upstream at the tip of the Alley of Swans (Allée des Cygnes), in front of the Grenelle Bridge.

Who is Mirabeau?: Count de Mirabeau (1749-1791), more often simply called Mirabeau, gained prominence as a revolutionary nobleman. He opposed the absolute monarchy in the decade prior to events of 1789 then favored a constitutional monarchy as the tide turned against Louis XVI.

Poetry: However, it isn’t the revolutionary history of Mirabeau that rings in the name “Le Pont Mirabeau” but the poem of that title by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), written in 1912 and published in his collection “Alcools” in 1913.

Le Pont Mirabeau

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Apollonaire himself can be heard reading “Le Pont Mirabeau” in a 1914 recording in which he instills his work with the full weight and rhythm of a dirge. On the Wheaton College website click on “dit par l’auteur” (i.e. spoken by the author).

The words of “Le Pont Mirabeau” have been made into several notable songs, including this 1952 song by Léo Ferré with its vie-en-rosy wistfulness:

and this 2001 song by Marc Lavoine with its melodic drama:

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Where the Seine Flows, and Our Love: The Mirabeau Bridge appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

It’s been unusually cold in Paris, mostly a dry cold though. It’s the damp cold that normally marks the Paris winter so, warmly dressed, it’s nearly a pleasure to be in the cold outside. It’s inside that things get dicey. I returned to Paris a few days ago after six weeks in the U.S. and have since spent a good amount of time winterizing the apartment: hanging curtains, plugging spaces on the edges of doors and windows, buying an electric heater.

The elderly woman downstairs used to heat a lot in winter, I could tell by the warmth of my parquet, but she now goes south for much of the winter. And a guy in his 20s recently moved next door and doesn’t need to turn on his own heat very often since most nights he warms his apartment by having a dozen friends over for a rave party. I’m left to heating my own space. So much for community.

The best place to find community these days is in the cafes and bars of the residential neighborhoods. They’ve been quite crowded, I’ve noticed, these past few days and evenings, smokers swarming by the doorways. Crisis, what crisis?

I love cafes in winter, the way people come in rubbing the cold off their hands. There’s more of a community feel to a café in winter than in summer. In summer everyone wants a piece personal joy, their own proverbial spot in the sun. You tolerate your neighbors at surrounding tables in summer, but other than the usual sexual attraction you’d rather have nothing to do with them. In winter, though, there’s more of a feel that we’re all in this together. On especially cold winter days, as in rain storms in other seasons, the café becomes a kind of genteel bomb shelter. It’ll pass, we think, or we’ll soon go out and confront the elements, but in the meantime un autre, s’il vous plaît.

I just got home from having coffee with a friend and I take back what I said a paragraph ago.

There isn’t much of a sense of community in the café after all. I now think that the difference between the winter café and the summer café is that in winter Parisians have even less of a sense of personal space than they do in summer. Their sweaters, scarves, and coats not only put a damper on the aforementioned sexual attraction but also make people unaware of where their space ends and others’ begin. Add to that the shopping bags now that the annual winter sales period is underway and oh the looks you get when you ask a woman to take her ankle-length duvet coat and H&M bags from an otherwise available chair so that you can sit down! Sometimes the bomb shelter feels less genteel, but once you and your friend have got your space it’s café society as holders of McStarbucks Cards can only dream about, even at McStarbucks in Paris.

Yesterday, after insulating window cracks in the morning, I went out to take photos in my neighborhood along the canal. There were at least a dozen people taking pictures within the same 300-yard stretch of the canal during the same 30-minute grey-day photo shoot, including a couple of guys with long lenses, one with a tripod. The thought that most of those photographers were going to put their pictures on blogs accompanied or not by text about the cold in Paris and the ice on the canal was rather disheartening. It’s one thing to compete for elbow room in a café, it’s quite another to think that we’re all competing for attention on the internet.

Truth be told, the canal is not a highly photogenic place. Oh, it’s a nice place to live, to hang out, to stroll, to café-sit, and, when the weather’s right, to picnic, but its color combination of dark green, grey, beige, brown, and black, with little sky in the frame and an uninspiring mishmash of architecture alongside, make the canal an awkward place to photograph. We all pointed our cameras towards the ice in the hopes that that would be evocative enough.

I stood on a bridge by a guy with a long lens to take the shot above of gull prints in the dusting of snow on the ice. The guy tried not show that he was annoyed by my “copying” him, but when I then followed him over to shoot a view from the side he gave me the same look as the women whose space I invaded in the café today. Why should his blog have better photos than mine just because he’s got a bigger lens?

The canal may not be very photogenic but the Eiffel Tower always is. That explains why one occasionally comes across some stunning photographs of the Eiffel Tower. Problem is, it’s hard to make the Eiffel Tower look like anything but the Eiffel Tower, by which I mean that it rarely evokes any other thought than: That’s the Eiffel Tower, I’ve been there (or I want to be there).

That’s why I love the joy that comes across in Va-nu-pieds’ Eiffel Tower photo. In it he managed to capture the sense of ecstasy at coming upon a distant view of the Iron Lady. I’m honored that he gave me first dibs to use it on France Revisited’s Photography Blog.

A close look at the shot shows that he must have taken the picture in summer because you can see the sandal tan lines on his foot (unless those are shadows from the beams), but the Eiffel Tower is timeless enough that, unlike in my apartment, a difference of 50 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t matter.

– Text and photos Gary Lee Kraut, 2010.

The post Winter in Paris: Does size matter on the ice canal? appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

What had previously been isolated Seine-side clusters devoted more to afternoon sunbathing than to evening picnicking, has now developed into a popular ritual whereby, picnickers both French and foreign congregate at various choice setting in the capital.

From May through August, in tune with late sunset and lengthy twilight, the most popular of these settings are:
– on the Champs de Mars by the Eiffel Tower,
– along the right bank of the Seine,
– on the western tip of Ile de la Cité,
– on the eastern tip of Ile Saint Louis,
– Pont des Arts, the pedestrian bridge,
– on the eastern side of Bassin de la Villette (19th arr.),
– in Parc de la Villette (19th arr.), and
– along Canal Saint Martin (10th arr.).
Click on the “View Map” tab to see the location of these various picknicking hotspots.

Peak picnic time at all of these locations is between the hour before and after sunset. Some arrive 6-8 p.m. for the aperitif then move on. After nightfall the average age drops as the emphasis is less on picnicking and more on hanging out.

The most photogenic of the major Paris picnicking sites is the pedestrian bridge called the Pont des Arts, between the French Institute and the Louvre. You have only to look at the surroundings to understand why: the side of the Louvre, the dome of the Institute, the riverbanks and bridges, the Eiffel Tower peeking out beyond the Orsay Museum, the towers and spires on Ile de la Cité, and of course the river itself, Paris’s raison d’être, with its parade of barges and tour boats.

The atmosphere on the Pont des Arts is at its best in June and early July, before vacations reduce the number of locals on the bridge, but it remains a choice picnic spot whenever the weather allows.

Brandon Echkoff and I went to the Pont des Arts one evening in June to catch the pulse of the bridge, as you’ll see in the accompanying audio slide-show. Watch it by clicking on either the “View Video” tab above (video may take 10 seconds to load) or on the Youtube screen below. Enjoy the view.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

Picnicking on the Pont des Arts, audio slide-show
Interviews, text, some photos: Gary Lee Kraut
Audio and most photos: Brandon Eckhoff
Several photos: Jackson Shaw

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