In photos: Love locks around the world
I am sure many of you well travelled souls reading this will be familiar with what for me is a new trend. Padlocks. Or love locks as they are also called. I first noticed them at Cape Byron at the end of the famous lighthouse walk from Byron Bay. On the wire fence found at the most eastern point of mainland Australia were a few lonely padlocks featuring the names of two individuals each etched into their metal. The second place I found similarly inscrived padlocks was on Sydney Harbour Bridge, again clinging to the wire fence and again with the names of couple scratched in them. My assumption is of course that loving, travelling couples leave these padlocks at significant sights and landmarks as a modern day and more romantic “We Woz Ere”. I have never knowingly seen these padlocks before yet a little bit of research revealed this is more a phenomenon than a trend. Take a look at this article about the love locks trend (which apparently started thanks to a Italian novel) and how many of Europe's landmarks are now weighed down with padlocks.
As romantic as the notion is - leaving a lasting reminder that you and your loved one were in a certain place enjoyed a certain view and no doubt, gushingly, shared a certain “moment” - it did leave me wondering one particular thing: Which one of you is paying for the excess baggage to carry all those weighty padlocks in your luggage?
UPDATED 27th January 2011: I was contacted via Instagram of all places by Meg White (no, not of White Stripes fame) as she has seen these padlocks on a bridge in Florence, in Italy. She told me that apparently this particular landmark gets so full of padlocks that every now and again the local council cut them off in time for others to come along and lock their love down. Thank you to Meg who blogs at Glamourhood. And here are some from Pont des Arts in Paris as taken by Lucy on her blog On the Luce. I love the last photo - you can see them stacking up...
Frances M. Thompson
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