Recently while in Trafalgar Square on a cold Sunday morning I was captivated by the church bells of St. Martin in the Fields. It just sent chills up and down my spine. I also felt this way at Notra Dame and in Bruges on a Sunday morning. Just to think of the history of these churches is exciting. Any one else have a special Church/cathedral/bell experience to share...

Maybe not exactly what you had in mind...but I'll never forget being awakened by the bells of the Duomo in Florence. Our hotel was less than 1 block away and those bells went on forever!! Not your typical 7 bells, it's 7a.m. It was our first morning in the city (after a much delayed flight the night before) and the "where am I" factor coupled with those bells was hysterical. We still can't think about it without laughing.

Easter morning, Paris, our hotel on the Ille St Louis. We woke to the bells of Notre Dame. I remember just lying there , listening. It was wonderful.

you know, that was one of my favorite things about Italy. Funny, I don't think about it until I hear it and it stops me in my tracks. It still gives me goosebumps and immediately transports me back.

Yep, one late December Sunday morning in Garmisch at about 8:00am the bells woke me up and there was about a foot of snow on the ground and it was still snowing hard. I video'd for about 10 minutes. I still haul out that video from time to time just to listen to the church bells.

Great memories! Any More?

In Strasbourg while staying in a hotel on the pedestrian area around the cathedrale, I thought the morning bells were just outside my window!

One of my favorite things about Europe is the marvelous ringing of the church bells. You can experience this in just about any city.<BR><BR>Perhaps my favorite memory was eating at an outdoor cafe at noon in the square in Delft when the bells of the old and new churches started to ring - almost in competition with each other. Magical.

No bells, but I wandered into the cathedral in Bath, sat in a pew just to soak up the beauty of the sun coming through the stained glass windows, and then the organist began his practice on the pipe organ. Thought I had died and gone to heaven.

hotel in Florence, a room with a view... of a courtyard (although my hotel did front on the Arno)<BR><BR>each morning at 7 am, woken by staccato peals. must have been 50 rings each time. kind of like an alarm clock you can't reach out and swipe.<BR><BR>I don't recall feeling happy about this.

Rome, last year. It was winter, but my room was so hot that I slept with the window open a little bit, and at 7am, in my guest house near the Spanish Steps, they were very soothing, gentle, and musical. I miss that very much.<BR><BR>BC

Churches found out about this hypnotic effect centuries ago. It drew people to the church in a trance-like state and made them more suseptible to the &quot;relaxation response&quot; and hense easier to make them conform to the church. The church gained substantial control over people in part with bells throught history.

Bells, organ music, rythmic chanting in a foreign language for the sense of hearing.<BR><BR>Incense for the sense of smell.<BR><BR>Wine and bread for the sense of taste.<BR><BR>Relics to fondle for the sense of feel.<BR><BR>Beautiful buildings with coloured glass pictures for the sense of sight.<BR><BR>Anything I left out?<BR><BR>By the way I am not anti-religion, just curious.<BR><BR>As always.

I love the bells here in Europe, but I do have to admit I've become a little schizophrenic about them. We live in a small village in Germany, and each day the bells ring at 1100 and 1830 for five minutes. Very nice; but they also ring every Sunday morning at 0800 and each half hour for the next two hours. This wouldn't be so bad if we didn't live two doors away and our bedroom wasn't in direct line-of-site with the bell tower! Once a month there are Saturday evening services instead and our friends all laugh at our relief because we know we can sleep in that morning. Just one of those small things I love about living over here!

In Florence I stayed in a convent that took up an entire city block (was walled of from the 'outside' world with beautiful gardens) and every morning the bells tolled at six. Even though it was sometimes painfully early after having been out too late the previous night, I had to smile when I woke thinking how wonderful it was to be in the birthplace of the renaissance and so far removed from the hustle and bustle of life back home...

<BR>In Istanbul, atop the Galata Tower, we had a view across the Golden Horn of the ancient (former) church of St. Sophia and other great mosques. The call to prayer rose up from the European mosques and from the mosques across the Bosphorous in Asia. <BR>

<BR>During Ramadan in November, the call to prayer was at 4:30 am. Quite beautiful to hear it laying in bed in the dark.<BR><BR>And, I understand the church bells were originally rung during the day at 11:00 to alert the Hausfrau to get the noon meal on the table - (when only the rich had clocks, of course)

There are two travel experiences that never fail to make me feel a sense of wonder at how lucky I am to be able to travel and see so much of the world. <BR><BR>The first is seeing the lights of a city against a deep, black night sky. Cities like Hong Kong look so wonderfully vibrant and alive at night - but the best view is from the height of an airplane window. It's not just white lights, but pale blue, vibrant red, turquoise, sea green, bright yellow . . . from such a distance, the cars moving on the streets look like the blood pumping through the city's veins. The sight truly lifts my heart. <BR><BR>The second is church bells in a historic part of any European town. I don't know why (and it doesn't really work for me in a modern part of any town), but I am genuinely moved by that same feeling of wonder and thankfulness every time I hear church bells peal through a city, echoing off the stone buildings through the narrow cobblestone streets. It's just a perfect sound that never fails to draw my attention and lift my spirit the same way it must have the citizens of the city hundreds of years ago.<BR><BR>Thanks for the memory, AJ!

In Salzburg, listening to bells from several nearby churches from the balcony of our room in the Bristol Hotel...these are the things we remember.

Malta.....<BR>Mdina<BR>at noon<BR>the angelus bells from the cathedral on the square<BR>memories reverberate from long ago