A fairly recent and slightly baffling phenomenon, love locks may have been cute in the early 2000s, but the sheer quantity of them (and how they look) is now causing headaches for city councils around the world. Some have removed them and banned their installation, but loved up tourists can be stubborn fellows…

In Paris, the Pont des Arts and Pont de l’Archevêché have been the main targets. The latter, just behind Notre-Dame, is saturated with them.

So, ugly eyesore or intriguing tourist attraction? Is a bike lock really the way to express your eternal love in the 21st century? You decide – in any case, we couldn’t resist taking a whole load of photos of the Pont de l’Archevêché a few days ago to show you this surreal sight…

We start with the east side of the bridge, where there’s still a little space left. As you go through the photos (via our slideshow below, for example) you’ll see how thick the bridge is with locks now. It’s astonishing…To check out all our photos of the love locks on Pont de l’Archevêché, click the play button below, then click the four little arrows bottom right to go into fullscreen mode.