Padlocks

The placing of padlocks on the Janus Pannonius Street railings is a quite fresh tradition, begun only three decades ago.

It all started in Pécs in the ‘80s and resulted in a global tradition. It has different explanations: one of these is that wives could send a message to their lovers this way, saying that all is clear and their husbands are away. Another reading states that school-leavers locked their school locker padlocks there. Nowadays all kinds of people follow this tradition by placing their padlocks on the grid and throwing the keys away. On most of these padlocks we can see names and initials, even Prince Philip of Spain and his wife contributed to this tradition during their visit in 2004.