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Ponte Milvio Bridge, Rome, Italy
Italy
is supposedly, where it all began.
Although the love padlock is historically
believed to have originated from China,
one particular scene from the popular
book “
I Want You
” by the Italian author
Federico Moccia has made this practice
even more popular back late in 2000s.
Similar to what happened in Paris, 825
pounds of locks were removed from
Ponte Milvio‘s lamp posts in 2007. The
mayor of Rome even imposed a 50-euro
fine on anyone who puts a padlock in that
location. Looks like lovers in Italywill have
to lock their love padlocks elsewhere.
Penang Hill, Penang, Malaysia
Malaysia
has its very own love padlock
location where local lovebirds can profess
their love without having to fly abroad.
Unlike in the cities where love padlocks
are prohibited, the custom is still very
much alive at Penang Hill. The lovers are
not only able to purchase their padlocks
at the site but also customise them with
permanent ink pens and protective sprays
to make them last longer. Located at the
open air observation deck of the Penang
Hill Food Centre, the 80m fence that
overlooks the city of George Town gets
covered with more colourful padlocks
each day.
Pont des Arts Bridge, Paris,
France
In
Paris, love padlocks are getting a bad rep
for destroying the railings of the Pont des
Arts Bridge, which raises problems for the
preservation of their architectural heritage.
It has since been replacedwith anti-graffiti
glass panels with no more space for any
love padlocks. Despite being known as the
City of Romance, Parisians generally see
the custom of ‘locking love’ ridiculous,
and a special campaign called ‘No Love
Locks’ was introduced in early 2014 by
two Americans in Paris to save the city’s
historical architecture by encouraging
lovers to take photos and posting them to
social media pages with #lovewithoutlocks
hashtag instead. People, especially tourists,
have been seen to react negatively towards
this new ruling, leading to plenty of other
alternative locations mushrooming all
over Paris.