In cities around the world, bridges covered in padlocks have become a common sight. The padlocks are put there by couples hoping to "lock" in their love. They are visible in cities ranging from Florence to Paris and from Moscow to China.
The trend began about a decade ago on a small pedestrian bridge in a Serbian resort town called Vrnjacka Banja
The legend goes that a schoolmistress named Nada would meet her lover, an army officer named Relja, on the bridge, where they pledged their love in the days leading up to World War I. The soldier went on to fight in Greece, where he met another woman and married her, leaving Nada alone where she is said to have dies from sadness and grief.
The story inspired couples to demonstrate their commitment to one another by writing their names on padlocks and chaining them to the fences along the bridge where Nada and Relja declared their love. The Serbian couples then sealed their promises of devotion by throwing the keys into the Vrnjacka River.
When a noted local Serbian poet, Desanka Maksimovic, heard the story of the couple on the bridge, she wrote a poem called "A Prayer for Love." This poem began the romantic notions surrounding the bridge.
The "Bridge of Love" is easy to find because in a town with 14 other bridges, it is the only one covered in thousands of chains of padlocks. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Many of them have personal messages written on them.
"It is so romantic," Slavia, a 28-year-old soldier, told ABC as he secured a padlock on the bridge dedicated to his wife, Danijela, 26. They have been married for two years. "It's so beautiful. It is original."
As the bridge grew more famous, it drew couples from around the world. The bridge is now covered in graffiti along with the thick layers of padlocks.
When the padlock tradition started to move into other cities, such as Paris and Rome, the city officials would cut the locks off the bridges.
City officials in Vrnjacka Banja do not want to tamper with the locks, which they see as tampering with tradition and love. They are not worried about the weight of the locks impacting the bridge. On the contrary, they do not remove the old padlocks out of fear of bad luck.
"We have 14 spare bridges on two different rivers," said Dr. Dejan Stanojevic, head of the town health spa. "There is enough space for all the padlocks."
"We have so many keys in the river that soon we could have a dam that could lead to a hydropower plant of love," Stanojevic said. "We all know that love is a renewable source of energy."
Vrnjacka Banja rose to prominence in the early twentieth century as a spa town on the strength of mineral baths and springs that drew patient seeking cures, as well as prominent political and artistic figures of the time.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
