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Now from the BBC World Service spanning the world, a series exploring the significance

of bridges around the world and the layers of meaning associated with them. This programme

looks at the Ponte Milvio Bridge, which crosses the Tiber River in Rome. It's a bridge

with a rich and complicated history, with a vital contribution to the founding of the Christian

Church in Rome, and now a place of pilgrimage for young lovers.

My name is Emanuele, and this name is Federica. We are together from one year's an

alpha, and today we are agreed to put this look on this bridge.

Spanning the world, the Ponte Milvio.

We're standing on the Ponce Milvio, Ponte Morel, or the Ponte Milvio. There's a local

myth here, and it's a very young one, and it's less than a decade, that there's been

a story of putting padlocks here on the bridge for young lovers to lock themselves into

a relationship that will last.

We put the lock on the river.

And now the story is to put off the key inside the river together. It's important. One,

two, three. Bye bye. And now it's forever.

Well nowadays it's famous as the Bridge of Lovers, which is sort of ironic seeing as

until that point it's most famous for being a battle.

18 years to meet you, one month to know you, one moment to love you, as very romantic.

We're standing right in front of the parapet, and this thing is tattooed with graffiti,

and they're all little memorials of lovers who've come here to put up these padlocks.

...