In the latest episode of heartbreak and disgust, the world’s largest reseller of tours is promoting vandalism tours, and the beautiful bridge overlooking the 863-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral is completely covered in ugly scaffolding after its railing were destroyed by the rusting padlocks known as “Love Locks”.
UPDATE April 26th: Thanks to the public outcry and many of your emails, Viator has removed the “Love Lock” tour from its website! The FB page remains active, but hopefully not for long. Thank you to everyone who took the time to share this article and to speak out against the destruction of Paris’s beautiful bridges, it makes a difference!
Are you as sick of reading about the destructive “love locks” as I am writing about them? Unfortunately until tourists stop attaching padlocks to the city’s historic bridges and monuments, I’m going to keep reminding you (and I’m hoping you’ll pass it on to your friends and family and colleagues when they travel to Paris).
Despite the massive, ongoing efforts of the Mayor of Paris and citizen campaigns like No Love Locks, there are still idiots attaching padlocks anywhere they feel like it. Yesterday I discovered by chance that Viator is now marketing a vandalism tour where couples pay €120 per person for the “Love Locks Workshop while Drinking Champagne”. On this “tour” they get to choose and customize a padlock while drinking Champagne, then “when your Love Lock is ready your guides will conduct you to hang it up on the poetic Pont de l’Archevêché, where there’s a great view of Notre Dame.” I almost threw up reading this. Viator, owned by TripAdvisor, is the largest reseller of tours in the world. As I mentioned in my article What You Don’t Know about TripAdvisor (which now has 80k views!), Viator lets anyone post any tour at all without verifying legality, let alone legitimacy. There is no way to flag the tour, nor a “contact” link to ask Viator to remove it. The “guide” Eléonore Chevallier and her husband also have a Facebook page promoting the destructive tours.
The most distressing thing is that the railings of the specific bridge they mention has been completely ripped out because of the damage and are now under scaffolding. The pictures above are from this weekend, and the ones below from last summer.
Unfortunately each time the City of Paris finds a way to prevent padlocks from being attached to a bridge, the vandals just find a new place to attach them: I noticed there are now padlocks being attached to the fencing in front of the Cathedral. Disgusting!
Speak out against this horrific practice, and please tell your friends visiting Paris not to participate in the destruction of this beautiful city!