Although Salzburg cannot compete with Paris in terms of sheer tonnage of love locks (in 2015 Paris removed 45 tons of locks from the Pont des Arts), Salzburg also has a river and a couple of footbridges with wire mesh fences, which when I was there were slowly but surely starting to sag under the weight of the locks.

Heart of Mozart

As in Paris and other cities, a few of the merchants in Salzburg who have shops near the river are trying to cash in on the craze by offering locks for sale, and in this case also “engraving for free”. This particular shop is called “Heart of Mozart” (in English, of course) and is within sight of Mozart’s birth house. Note the years “1756” and “2006” painted on the shop. 1756 was the year of Mozart’s birth, not the year the shop was opened. 2006 was Mozart’s 250^th birthday and presumably also the year the shop was re-painted.

Lucklocks

Here at “Heart of Mozart” the love locks are also called “Lucklocks”, presumably to encourage those tourists who don’t happen to be in love with anyone to snap a lock on the bridge anyway, just for luck. Another sign helpfully announces: “Lovelock Bridge at 200 m”, for the benefit of those who have not yet found the Makartsteg. By the way, it was not my intention to conceal the prices in this photo, but the woman’s elbow happened to get in the way.

Satisfied customers

Here some satisfied customers are picking up their freshly engraved love lock at “Heart of Mozart”, with a bit of Mozart’s birth house (painted yellow) visible in the background.

Makartsteg

The Makartsteg is a pedestrian and cycling bridge across the Salzach River in the center of Salzburg. This lady riding her bicycle across the bridge seems to be running the gauntlet (or rather cycling the gauntlet) between the two fences full of locks.

My photos in this post are from 2016. I revised the text in 2020.

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