A few days ago, I walked over the Yarra Footbridge connecting Southbank to the Flinders Street station and discovered the bridge has become a new Love Lock location.
Love Locks – the phenomenon of people inscribing padlocks with their initials and those of their honey – pop up all over the world. The practice is rumoured to have begun in Italy, in tribute to Federico Moccia’s novel ‘Three Meters Above the Sky’, but they exist in France, Germany, the USA and other countries as well.
Lovers in Sydney have been asked to remove their locks from the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the basis that this demonstration of their passion poses a safety risk. The City of Melbourne intends to have engineers check out the footbridge to determine whether too much love can be a dangerous thing.
Over on the other side of the country, the Bell Tower in Perth (which traces the practice to China) casts a kindlier eye on loving hearts, and has made an area available for Love Locks. Well, you have to buy a $30 lock from them first, so perhaps their idea of romance is a bit more focused on commerce, but at least you’ll know your lock won’t be cut down, and you’ll get a memorial folder of the occasion.
I’ve seen a great drooping metal shrubbery of them on a fence in Pécs, Hungary, the first time I’d encountered the phenomenon, though I’d read of it before.
Wikipedia of course provides a lot of information about Love Locks and any related controversy.
In the end, whether it’s a public safety hazard or a wonderful, whimsical, glorious way to declare and celebrate your love (or both!) it’s true that lovelocked bridges, gates and fences grow like vines as testaments to a moment in time when love lasts forever.
Have you seen (or attached) Love Locks? Share your stories (and pictures) with Adventurous Hearts!
Do you know of a romantic Melbourne experience? Let me know and I will selflessly explore it. SELFLESSLY.
In the meantime, read my erotic spy thrillers set in Melbourne and Brisbane: Double Edged and Expendable!