A French design company has taken street art to the extreme with a huge canvas that is vying to be the biggest in the world.

Artists from Lyon-based CitéCréation have painted the Wohngenossenschaft Soldaritaet Coop apartments in the Friedrichsfelde district of Berlin with a remarkably life-like canvas.

The trompe-l'oeil, or urban design, features trees, animals and people and was inspired by a nearby zoo.

Covering 22,000 square metres of wall, the company is hoping to nab the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest mural. 

The five-kilometre Pueblo Levee Project in Pueblo, Colorado currently holds the title. 

Unlike the carefully-planned Berlin wall, the levee's concrete walls were first painted by students in the 1970s. Since then, more than 1,000 painters have left their mark.

CitéCréation began back in the '70s too, and has created over 580 giant frescos in cities including Barcelona, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Moscow and Shanghai.

Certainly adds some colour to the neighbourhood!

As one of Europe's most important banking centres, Frankfurt has a reputation of being well... boring. 

The city in central Germany is home to over 300 banks, including the European Central Bank that is tasked with rescuing the troubled Eurozone. 

A city swarming with bankers and bureaucrats is not really compatible with romance, right? Wrong! 

Today, as I walked around this really rather pleasant city, I came across a very sweet symbol of romance.

The Eiserner Steg, an iron footbridge that connects the city centre with Sachsenhausen on the southern banks of the Main River, is covered with thousands of padlocks.

Most are engraved with the names of lovers, often with a significant date, and attached to the bridge. 

As I loitered on the bridge reading some of them, I saw a couple attach a padlock and then throw the key into the river below. "It symbolises our everlasting love," the newlyweds told me between smooches. All together now, awww...

Over 10,000 people cross this neo-Gothic bridge everyday. And I bet all but the most boring banker does so with a spring in his step.