Laatste update op 18 November 2017

Padlocks of love, love locks or: lucchetti dell’amore in Italian. You will spot them attached to the metal fences of various bridges in Venice. What are they there for, what’s the story?

The Italian movie ‘Ho voglia di te’ (2007), based on the book of Federico Moccia, starts the love lock trend in Italy. In a key scene, a young Italian couple attaches a padlock to a bridge (ponte), as a symbol for their inseperable bond. This symbolic gesture found its way to the public, resulting in bridges throughout the country covered with love locks.

Lucchetti dell'Amore in Venetië - Ponte della Tette

Lucchetti dell’Amore in Venetië – Ponte della Tette

The love locks in the picture were attached to the Tit Bridge (bridge 3, Ponte della Tette, from my route of Venetian bridges »). Since this bridge has no major iron fences, it is more difficult to leave a padlock. As a matter of fact, love couples can be very inventive. With a little bit of luck, these love locks will be around longer than those attached to the Rialto bridge, or other busy bridges in Venice.

Problems at the bridge

It may seem quite innocent to leave a padlock like this, but in reality this is not the case. The bridges may become too heavily loaded, which decreases their safety because of their maximum carrying capacity. So in fact the pedestrians are endangered. You are not allowed to attach padlocks to bridges. If you get caught you can count on a snappy fine.

Lucchetti dell'Amore in Venetië

Lucchetti dell’Amore in Venetië

Operation away-with-padlocks

So, as you can imagine, not everybody is happy with the love locks. Not just for safety reasons but also from an esthetic point of view. Venice has its own organisation ‘Liberazione dei lucchetti dell’amore’ (liberation of the love locks). Members of this organisation regularly remove locks from the bridges in the city.

My advice in this: simply stick to kissing the love of your life in the old-fashioned way: kiss him or her under the Bridge of Sighs to confirm your eternal love.

Links

Demotix, photos of crackdown love locks »>


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