The lock of love: padlocks on bridges

• A symbolic gesture of love, clipping a padlock on the bridge is considered a beautiful ritual in Paris, the city of love. Relationships die out in a few months, but the locks stay on forever.
• These padlocks, counting to millions, are on the verge of collapsing the historic bridges, leading to authorities removing them to save the structures and imposing strict penalties.
• Apart from Paris, these padlocks are found across the world, wherever beautiful bridges are situated. New South Wales, Las Vegas, Vancouver, all have these love locks, some with no key, to seal the love forever once it is clipped on.

Historically, the practice seems to come from an ancient Chinese tradition, though there is a story of a doomed love affair in Serbia between a teacher and army officer, who used to meet at a bridge.

The army officer was sent away to Greece and fell in love with someone else, breaking the heart of the school teacher.