PadLocks of Love

One of the more curious things I saw in my recent trip to the Mediterranean was a collection of padlocks, engraved with initials, on the gates and lamp posts in and near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. I took a few photos, made a mental note to research it later, and just plain forgot. Until now. A friend of mine who follows my blog became curious by the blogpost I wrote about Rome and did some research. What she discovered was kind of interesitng.
Apparently the young lovers of Rome had taken it upon themselves to engrave their initials onto padlocks and attach these locks to a lamp post near the Tiber River, throwing the keys into the river and thus locking their love for eternity. Until the lamp post collapsed under the weight of the locks. Rome officials banned the practice and for a time the lovers turned to virtual locks via an online forum - at least until the virtual world was not fulfilling enough. Seeking a new location, they began to lock their love around and near the Trevi fountain, tossing their keys into the fountain instead of the river.
This practice is not looked well upon in Rome. And for the gates of the church outside the Trevi fountain, it's certainly epidemic (I can say this from personal experience - the locks were everywhere). But in my opinion, this practice isn't much different than Catholic Christians or other religious peoples writing their petitions and prayers on paper and other odd bits of  memorabilia and leaving them in wall cracks and around religious statues and church monuments, hoping for answers. It's the same idea in a way  - petitioning for and stating your eternal love...however fleeting that might be. And in a day and age where fidelity is perhaps a rarer practice than it ought to be, locking your love around a monument in declaration doesn't seem like such a bad thing. At least to me.

Here's an article my friend found on the padlocks.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/lazio/love-locks-appear-trevi-fountain