Thursday, August 19, 2010

No bagels, but some locks.....

Locks on a Ponte Milvio street lamp

My husband posted a photo on his photoblog today of some locks. A comment was left by someone in France named Maylss that described how it's become a trend around the world for lovers to put locks on public places to signify their everlasting love.

Super sleuth that I am (trained at Google U) I discovered this....

Locks of love are the padlocks fixed by loving couples, on to a fence or a pole or metallic chain/string alongside some wall etc at a public place, to symbolize their eternal love. A couple would hang a padlock after inscribing their name or initials on it and throw the key away so that their love is locked forever. Some couple use two inter-twined locks, each lock bearing their name/initials. Besides lovers, often family members and close friends also put such locks at these places, to lock their relationship forever.

The tradition probably originated from China where the love locks can be seen at several locations alongside the Great Wall of China and also in many temples and on the steps/paths leading to sacred peaks.

The tradition has spread around the World and is now quite prevalent in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, USA etc.






I gotta find a spare lock somewhere.....