It may not have the romantic aura of Ponte Milvio, but the Kilifi creek is still one of the marvellous settings on the Kenyan coast. And especially the seaside stilted restaurant White Star, conceived years ago by Roman entrepreneur Pasquale Pes, is a place frequented by tourists in love (and not) from all over the world. For couples who want to leave a souvenir, Pes as was done on the Tiber way back in 2007 after the success of the film 'Ho voglia di te', where Riccardo Scamarcio and Laura Chiatti declared their eternal love in the eternal city by fixing a padlock to a light pole on Ponte Milvio.
In Kenya, this fashion has never arrived, neither on bridges nor elsewhere, so the White Star has created a support structure to the light pole at the restaurant's entrance where couples can leave their 'love padlocks'. The sign highlighting it, marked by a huge red heart at the top, reads 'Lucchetto dell'amore' in English, Kiswahili and, of course, Italian.
The initiative has also attracted the attention of the Kenyan media, and the big heart of Kilifi's White Star also ended up in a recent television report. The light-heartedness of the Italian heart gets people talking in Kenya, and it is always a good calling card for our community, which for so many years has almost always been harmoniously integrated in the coastal region.