To be annoyed at church bells ringing every hour all night

[mrsbeeton999]

We're on hols in France and every hour have 2 lots of church bells ringing the time - one is about 2 minutes late. So at midnight last night 24 loud church bells! Every time I nearly fell asleep it either did 1 dong for the half hour, or started again for the following hour. I hoped it was just a Sunday thing but they've just chimed at 10pm so I'll be awake all night tonight too! How can people live here and put up with it?

I once stayed at a youth hostel next door to St Paul's Cathedral. Once. I changed my booking for the following four nights.

We were on a campsite in Yorkshire one year and the church click chimed all night.We did get used to it after a couple of nights.

Ear plugs?

Love right near a church so sound of bells is comforting to me. Hate it when clock breaks!

YogiYoni I know the very one. I spent a night there once too. Me and DD actually started crying at 4am..!

Haha @Shitalopram. It's not changed then? I was on work experience at NME and feeling very proud about staying in London on my own. Then I had to move hostels as I couldn't cope.

I was scuppered by church & town bells this Sunday that started ringing wildly at 9am just as I was sneaking into the kitchen of our holiday cottage to make a quiet cuppa before everyone else woke up!

Yogi it was about 8 years ago that I went so maybe things have improved..!

Generally you don't notice after a time.

I don't know what I'd do without the church bells now. Living near them is so lovely.

It's fine if you live there IME but it's a total bugger if you're only there for a couple of days.

We're only here 4 nights. Have windows open but don't want to sleep with them shut. I guess people who live here get used to it but it's such a quiet place no traffic noise etc so they sound so loud in the night. They've got a big full visitors book of comments with no mention of the bells so maybe aibu to let it bother me!

Rome is exactly the same, bells never stop! We quite enjoy it though.

Ear plugs? Noise cancelling headphones with white noise?

I still remember the torture of a French exchange in the sixth form. Small village, staying in a cottage right next to the church. I was hallucinating through tiredness by the end of the second week.

I realise this doesn't help you but felt the need to share

Ooh we had this in Rome a few years ago. We stayed right opposite the basilica de Santa Maria de something. It was amazing. Loud bells though. Windows shut at nighttime with air con on.

The American tourists in the hotel at the same time complained to the hotel about the bells. Hotel manager just shrugged and said "this is Rome. 1600 churches here"

We are off to Mantilly next week, they ring every quarter of an hour and an extra loud and long session at 7am and 7pm. DH has bought ear plugs this year.

I stayed in Bethlehem for a few days and it was the sound of the call to prayer fom the mosque that woke us through the night. I think it was a recording being broadcast via an amplifier. It was an experience!

You stop noticing. I went to school in a school where some of the female dorms were undera bell ttower Catholic Germany. You just stop noticing and sleep through it.

I stayed in the St. Paul's youth hostel 3 years ago and didn't notice the bells...

However I head to keep my head right down on the bus to sixth form college every morning, many moons ago, because it turned out the very few other sixth formers who lived in the same village (whom I had never previously met due to having been sent to private school up until GCSE) lived in the shadow of the church and spent Monday morning's hour long journey to school sharing their almost pathological hatred for my father, the friggin chief bell ringer .

We used to live next to a church that chimed every 15 mins.

My sister visited with her new husband (from other side of the world so he'd never been before). On the first night after midnight chimes we heard the wail "have we bloody well been invaded - or is it a million o'clock???"

OP - I'd just been reading the creepy "woo" stories in Classics, when suddenly my local church bells started ringing. They NEVER ring except on a Sunday.

Even freakier, I came onto AIBU to take my mind off it and immediately saw this thread.

Woooooo

No different from living near a road or railway. There are definitely worse sounds to hear than church bells. And you can bet that they have been here longer than any of us have ;)