An Italian coastal beauty spot known as “Lovers’ Arch” because of its popularity with courting couples collapsed during heavy storms on Valentine’s Day in what one local official called “a blow to the heart.”

Faraglioni di Sant’Andrea, the site of an arch in the stone cliffs on the coast of Salento — the heel of Italy’s “boot’ — has drawn romantically inclined visitors for centuries, with lovers traditionally proposing marriage, stealing first kisses or celebrating unions. Those who kissed under the arch were destined for eternal love, according to local legend.

But when a powerful storm swept across southern Italy over the weekend, the arch’s fragile structure gave way, reducing it to a pile of rubble.

Its collapse has dealt a “devastating blow to the image of Salento and to tourism,” Maurizio Cisternino, mayor of the town of Melendugno, near the fallen arch, told CNN. “It’s a blow to the heart.”

The arch was formed by centuries of harsh wind and high seas grinding away at the Calcarenite stone cliffs of Italy’s Puglia region, on the turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea. The site, once a strategic lookout used to warn of pirates, became a magnet for lovers during the late 18th century.

Instagram photos have drawn thousands more couples to the arch in recent years, Cisternino said. Because it’s free and open to the public, it’s impossible to know exactly how many, he added.

Lorenzo Barlato, a local resident, proposed to his wife on the clifftop overlooking the arch more than 40 years ago and the pair often returned for anniversaries.

“I couldn’t wait to return,” he posted on Facebook after Saturday’s collapse. “Now, unfortunately, all I have left are the many beautiful photos I took of that piece of paradise.”

The area is so popular that hotels and resorts — many named for the arch — have sprung up to accommodate visitors.

Warmer sea temperatures as a result of climate change are seen as a factor in driving the extreme weather that battered the arch, which had already been damaged by Cyclone Harry in January.

But concern over the landmark’s fragility goes back years.

In 2024, local authorities applied for a $4.5 million grant to fund a preservation project to combat coastal erosion, but failed to secure the money, according to Cisternino.

“It’s a tragedy we knew was inevitable, we just didn’t expect it to happen so soon,” he told local media on Sunday.

He told CNN that “nature has reclaimed the arch, just as it created it,” and said that resources were needed to tackle the situation along the coast.

“Nature has been transformed: what was there 30 years ago is no longer there.”

The collapse follows weeks of violent storms across southern Italy. In Sicily, a landslide recently saw houses fall into a ravine in the town of Niscemi. Widespread flooding has taken the lives of several people, including a man who died when his home collapsed near Rome last week.

Now gone, the remnants of the arch will be left to wash out at sea, the municipality says. “It’s like a funeral,” Puglia tourism councillor Francesco Stella said Sunday of what was once one of the happiest places in Italy.

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