Quote::

Bolzano bell fight looms Lie- in lovers irked by chime- happy friars (ANSA) - Bolzano, October 17 - Sleep-deprived residents of this northern Italian town have hired a lawyer to try to stop local friars disturbing their Sunday lie-ins with fusillades of bell-ringing. Experts have carried out ''sound pollution tests'' within earshot of the friars' church and tallied the number of bell tolls at 7 a.m. on a recent Sunday at 96, local daily Alto Adige reported on Friday. ''We will try to find the most suitable juridical way to induce the friars to tone down their ringing,'' lawyer Stefano D'Apolito told the paper. The sleepy-Sunday lovers said they would agree to a ''reasonable number of peals at a more reasonable time''.

This question has been a problem for many years all over Italy. So much so that a law was passed a few years ago forbidding church bells (and church clocks) to ring between 10.00pm and 6.55am. That bought some relief to anybody living within at least a kilometer of any church. But Sunday mornings was always going to be problematical if you hoped for a 'lie-in'....

Take 'my village' as an example. It is a typical Italian village and here many work in agriculture so an early start is quite normal. Now my local church begins 'calling the faithfull' at 6.57 (on the dot!) and the single bell rings 62 times. I KNOW - I've counted every chime many times when my widows have been open behind my shutters... Now before that is finished the church clock also chimes the hour at the same time. Of course, these days the 'calling' bells aren't rung by the priest, but electronically through loud spekers. They're recorded on tape!

But it doesn't finish there (at 7am) - oh no... there's the 8am mass, the 12 noon service and then the evening services to be 'called' too. Add to this a clock that chimes every quarter of an hour and you're getting the idea!

Here, within 1 kilometer of my house there are no fewer that THREE churches and we only pray that their clocks are showing the same time and that their priests can co-ordinate throwing the switch for 'the callings'! Believe me though - they don't!!! They aren't melodic in any way... they sound like these bells from another place here on Lake Como...

>Church bells - Lake Como Italy<


Now I have always been a lover of church bells. Hearing them accross the fields on a peaceful Sunday morning has always given me pleasure - especially when they sound like these:

>English church bells....<