Rome's 'love lock' bridge has turned to the Web for renewed life after buckling under the weight of its success in the real world.
A new website leads visitors to the Milvian Bridge as it was before its now-famous lamppost almost collapsed last month, threatening Rome's most recent romantic tradition.
As before with the real bridge, lovers can write their names on a virtual padlock, attach it to the lamppost as a symbol of their undying love, and even throw the key into the Tiber as couples used to.
"We first got the idea after people started thieving the real locks," said Flavio Di Pinto of the Rome company that dreamed up the site.
"Now we're even surer that a Web version was needed," he said, adding that "anyone in the world can leave their pledges here".
Visitors to the site, www.lucchettipontemilvio.com, are informed of the time in Rome when they've logged on to the site.
"Predictably, a lot of them tend to hang around till sunset," Di Pinto said.
Before clicking their padlock onto the post, he said, they can have a look at all the other "digital locks" attached before them.
One of the main aims of the site, said co-designer Adriano Di Maio, is to "preserve the memory of what the bridge looked like and what it stood for".
Di Maio asked anyone who had their picture taken in front of the lamppost to send it to the site.
"We'll put all the photos up in order to leave an indelible trace of these promises of love".
The Milvian Bridge lamppost started bristling with locks in the wake of a successful 2003 romantic book and film, Tre Metri Sopra Il Cielo (Three Metres Above The Sky).
Imitating the protagonists, young Romans started writing their names on locks, chaining them round the lamp post and throwing the keys into the Tiber.
The craze caught on, and soon people were coming from all over the world, either to immortalise the bridge or their own love vows.
The trend dated back to a similar mountain of love locks on Florence's historic Ponte Vecchio, which was controversially removed by order of the mayor last year.
