Lock Your Love on Via dell’Amore for Saint Valentine

January 28, 2011 by Anna Merulla / Tags: Amore , Blue Path , Cinque Terre , Corniglia , Italy , kissing couple , locks , love , Love walk , Lovelocks , lover chair , lovers , Manarola , Monterosso , padlocks , path , Riomaggiore , romantic , saint valentine , tour , Vernazza , via dell'Amore , walk / 1 Comment

Via dell’Amore, the Cinque Terre romantic path dedicated to lovers, is famous all over the world. Couples love to walk on this pathway and, as a ritual, sit on the lover’s chair (the sculpture with a kissing couple) and put locks on the various gates and railings.

These locks symbolize their eternal love for eachother. In fact, two lovers demonstrate their devotion by inscribing their name or initials on a lock, securing it on one of the many gates along the path and throwing the key away so that their love is locked forever.

Some people could think that this ritual trash the area, but I think that today this has become part of the history of Cinque Terre. Lovers, but also families, close friends come here to lock their relationship forever.

But, do you know how the italian padlocks of love trend has begun?

In Italy the love padlock enthusiasm came first to Rome because of a romantic rite mentioned in two novels by the writer Federico Moccia. These novels, “Tre metri sopra il cielo” (Three meters above the sky) and “Ho voglia di te” (I Desire you) were also adapted and transformed into a film.

As per the story, a young man trying to win the heart of a girl, tells her that there is a tradition of putting a padlock in an old bridge in Rome, and throwing the key in the river makes their love last forever.

This started a new trend and couples began putting their locks onto a street lamp on Ponte Milvio. Soon the lamp was adorned by many locks. The authorities initially tried to stop this practice but later relented and today they have placed special chains for the locks to prevent damaging the lighting pole of the bridge.

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The Blue Path and Via dell’Amore in Cinque Terre

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