Love locks on the Hohenzollern

Hohenzollernbrücke is the train bridge that goes across the Rhine river.  From our hotel to the cathedral is roughly 1.5 km, and the entire bridge is covered by locks of all shapes and sizes  (though I did notice that there are many Abus aluminum locks, probably because they come in jewel-tone colours).  

Some of the locks were engraved with names and dates.  Others, like ours, were simple padlocks labeled with sharpie markers.  Almost everyone tried to do something that would make their lock stand out--I thought that adding a green ribbon to ours would make it more visible but apparently so did 2500 other people.    The strangest locks included an actual door panel riveted to the bridge frame, some large aluminum hearts chained to the fence, and some bicycle chains that were piggy-backed by all the locks attached to it. Someone even chained a small grinder to the bridge. 

We walked that bridge at least twice a day, and it never ceased to be interesting. We always saw couples adding a lock and tossing the keys into the river.  We saw people searching for a lock, older people leaning on each other reading the inscriptions, young people taking pictures.  I found myself wondering if anyone ever came to take a lock off the bridge if things didn't work out. 

There were far too many locks, in my opinion, that had Martin's name.  It's a real comfort though to know that only one matters.  It's on the hotel side of the bridge, right where the bank is, on the panel with the frog lock in the top right corner.  I don't know if I'll ever get back to Cologne, but I want to remember where to look.