Hohenzollern Bridge

The River Rhine cuts through the middle of the city of Köln or Cologne in Germany. Just looking at its width, you can tell that the river plays an important part in the life of the city. The city of Köln has built multiple crossings over the River Rhine but there is probably none more important than the Hohenzollern Bridge. The bridge is named after the former rulers of Prussia and modern day Germany – the House of Hohenzollern. The bridge has three arches and it used to be a railway and road bridge but after it was blown up during the war, it only functions as a railway and pedestrian bridge.

I remember this bridge because it is the one which leads directly to the Köln Central Station. Not only that, as the train was crossing the bridge, I saw that there were a lot of people here which meant that it is an important and popular place to visit. You can tell just how popular this place is by the presence of hundreds of thousands of love locks. I have seen this practice elsewhere in Europe and I don’t think I am a fan. In fact, I consider this to be vandalism. Not only are they unsightly, they are also very difficult to remove. I remember seeing the news how a famous bridge in Paris had to be closed off because of the weight of the sheer number of locks that was attached to it. I can see that the number of locks here could be just as many or even more than the one in Paris but who knows. For now, the locks stay, hopefully they won’t bring the bridge down with them.

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