The Frankfurt Love Lock Bridge

eiserner steg bridge

Yeah, the trend has spread to Germany too! 🙂

frankfurt love bridge

This is the Eiserner Steg Bridge – a pedestrian bridge in Frankfurt am Main. We wanted to go to Romer and the concierge from Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch Frankfurt hailed a taxi for us and told the driver to set us down at the other side of the bridge so we can walk across (it’s nearer and we’ll get to see the padlocks).

new love locks

The “love lock” bridge is all about people putting padlocks (some very colorful ones are coming out) and writing their names in permanent marker (original, old school method) or using laser engraving as the trend exploded and the commercialization started.

love lock bridge

The padlocks are “locked” onto the bridge – any part of the bridge – and the key kept. It’s supposed to symbolize the union of two people and the strength of the relationship.

love lock

AFAIK, the love lock bridge trend started in the early 2000’s and Wikipedia states that it first took hold in Paris. However, I’ve seen old locks with dates like 1989 so I’m not so sure that’s true. The most well known bridge in France is the Pont de l’Archevêché – it’s just behind Notre Dame.

original love locks

I believe there’s even a TVB series made about it, called Triumph in the Skies II or something. I only know this coz my better half watches Cantonese drama series. Yes, that was filmed in France (or so my dear says).

love bridge us

Since the popularity of the Pont de l’Archevêché love lock bridge, it has appeared all over cities in the world.

love padlock

I heard Malaysia even jumped on the bandwagon and *specially* opened a bridge for this, while countries like France have tried removing the locks (or transferring it) due to structural integrity concerns (the combined weight of that much padlocks is nothing to sneeze on).

Short mention:

romer panorama

I love the Sweep Panorama feature in my Xperia Z1 smartphone. We were headed to the beautiful Romer square and there was a wedding going on at the Old Saint Nicholas church. I couldn’t take the Romer’s famous Eastern façade together with the wedding at the church with *any* kind of camera, dSLR included, and was about to give up when I thought of the Z1’s panoramic photo and I managed to get everything in just one easy sweep – the instructions were on the screen!

I didn’t think of using it when I was the German version of the famous/cheesy (depending on how romantic you think is) Parisian “Lover’s Bridge” (which is dubbed The Frankfurt Love Bridge – or Padlock Bridge) when I was walking through it though and now I really want to take a Sweep Panorama shot on my smartphone so I can show how nice it actually is! I’m going to do one here in France and another when we head back to Frankfurt so I can show the difference in detail! 🙂

Posted: 9:38 pm Paris time (GMT +2) on 11th April – but it’s 12th April, 3:38 am in KL now! 😀

Updates on our 10 day vacation through Germany and France:
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https://www.facebook.com/SixthSealcom

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16 thoughts on “The Frankfurt Love Lock Bridge”

    • Yeah, I read that in Wikipedia! 🙂

      There are 3 bridges in Paris with love locks but the most famous one is the one near Notre Dame.

      Reply
  1. I was in Italy a few years ago and I saw many of these padlocks around… especially at Verona’s Juliet House (the same one from Romeo and Juliet), there were padlocks all over the place!

    Reply
    • Yeah, it’s all over Europe now! 🙂

      That’s cool! I’ve never been there and always wanted to coz I love Romeo and Juliet. I want to go to Sicily too but didn’t have time.

      Nice mate, hope you enjoyed the trip!

      Reply
    • They just another large lock e.g. bicycle lock and put locks on that! 🙂

      It’s quite ingenious, they’ll put locks high up, locks on top of locks, and get *CHAINS* to lock onto the bridge so there’s a loop where even more padlocks can be locked!

      Reply
    • Yeah, it’s an awesome idea! 🙂

      It’s just that when there’s toooo much e.g. people adding chains and large bicycle locks *and* put more padlocks on that when they run out of space that makes the bridge load unsafe.

      These are pedestrian bridges and they’re quite careful about extra loads since a bridge in US nearly collapsed when there was a peaceful walk across to commemorate an anniversary – they didn’t account for the weight of all the people making the metal and concrete bridge actually sway dangerously and cracks appeared in the foundations.

      I read Malaysia has one now too!

      Reply
  2. It’s such a great idea to have a love lock bridge. I don’t know why, but when I read about the one in Paris, I keep thinking that it is symbolizing a love that never dies.

    The panoramic shot is beautiful! =)

    Reply
    • Thanks Ciana! 🙂

      Yeah, it is a romantic thing to do eh? Would be nice to come back 10 year later and still find the lock there!

      Reply
    • Yeah, there’s one is most of Europe and the world! 🙂

      We were quite surprised to see the Frankfurt one but the one in Paris has more padlocks.

      Reply
  3. I have seen similar bridge in Twilight Man’s blog. That one was going up the mountain.

    Didn’t know Malaysia also have such bridge

    Reply
    • Nice! 🙂

      Yeah, I think there’s a love bridge in every country now! I hear Malaysia is making one specially for this in Penang too!

      The original one is in Paris behind Notre Dame though.

      Reply

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