Confluence, a bridge between hearts

The passers-by at the Confluence bridge which spans the Maine river may have their eyes attracted by unusual objects along the guardrails : padlocks. These have been bolted on the iron parapets of the guardrails, inongruous protections for something which can't be stolen and in a inconvenient site where nobody would park a personnal property. These padlocks have not a material function but an affective one. They are symbol of love : the love padlocks.

Credit Picture : Anthony Calamayor

Some of them bear the engraved firstname of the lovers and the date the padlock has been bolted. for one of them the symbol doesn't make any doubt : the ant-theft device has the shape of the heart. Maybe the designers of the bridge didn't thought their work, which has already an very aesthetic allure, would engage lovers to declare one's love. But the place is romantic with over the babling river. 

Such a custom could not disappear because in the years to come the place around the Confluence bridge will be entirely redeveloped in order to allow the Angers inhabitants to regain its river and its atmosphere. Its name, at first marked by the presence of the River, takes now a totally different meaning : from the physical geography to the Map of Tendre.