Love Locks, An der Obertrave bridge

As soon as the pedestrian bridge over the Trave River directly in front of Lübeck’s Musikhochschule (High School for Music) was constructed at the end of 2011, lovers began attaching “love locks,” as they have done in other cities around the world (see, for example, the Pont de l’Archevêché in Paris). And, predictably, a public debate arose about both the aesthetics and the potential danger to the bridge’s infrastructure and the struts of the bridge’s railings posed by the love locks.

A solution was found – in theory, workable – that in the future sweethearts would attach their locks to a series of horizontal chains that were specially mounted on the bridge instead of on the stainless steel bridge railing itself. And, the mayor, Bernd Saxe, promised that if the current chains were insufficient to hold the love locks, they would add more chains. To date, the lovers seem to be abiding by the new rules.

~Jo Farb Hernández, 2015

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, 23552 de
Latitude/Longitude: 53.8676461 / 10.6891338

View Larger Map in New Window