Hi All,

We are considering renting an apartment in Morges that is on the major road and steps away from the church. The apartment is on the 2nd floor of an old building, but it has new style double windows. I am wondering if anyone had lived in a similarly situated apartment and what was their sleeping experience.

We like the central location and the proximity to the lake, but really worried about the sleepless nights due to loud motorcycles and cars racing down the street at night. I assume, with the windows and shades closed we might be ok from fall through early summer. But sleeping with closed windows and no AC in the summer months might be close to impossible.

What about the church bell? Does it wake you up in the wee hours?

Please let me know your experience if you had to deal with any of this before.

thanks EF community!

I'm a light sleeper (when it comes to road noise) and the Swiss habit of starting their days at 6am, three hours before mine, means I can't have the bedroom windows open at night.

I open all the windows in the living room, keep all my internal doors open, and that keeps the place cool enough. A ceiling fan means I can sleep comfortably regardless of the temperature.

I have tried sleeping with my bedroom windows and balcony door fully open and to be honest it doesn't make much difference to the temperature in the room; just adds a slight breeze which the ceiling fan replicates.

I for more than 50 years lived near this church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bmJp1C3lJ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=YFLF5LCRyVc

and was fully used to it. I even miss it now

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The location in Wollishofen mentioned above was on a fairly busy road (until 21.00 and again up
from 05.00), but the apartment I had 2002-09 in Adliswil was without any traffic, so that I am
quite happy to be on a busy road again

I live on a road that sees plenty of traffic from both autos and trains through the day, as well as having two or three churches within loud bell-ringing distance... the main issue isn't when there is significant numbers of autos, but rather, in the quiet hours sometimes a single car sounds really loud.

The nearest church is on the opposite side of the block, but our terrace is about on level with the bell tower. Sometimes the bells make it tough to hear phone conversations or the TV, but they don't ring so loud over night, so they don't generally wake me up or keep me from getting to sleep. Summer time gives us 10min worth of bell ringing at 7am and 7pm, winter time it is 6am and 6pm daily, as well as "come to service" type ringing on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, still, the morning ringings are less disturbing (they don't wake me) than the evenings.


The tougher thing to me to get used to has been lack of air conditioning. One habit that is useful to cultivate for the summer heat is to leave everything as open as you dare all night and then close the (outside) shutters or blinds to keep the heat of the sun off the glass. If you can keep it from getting (too) hot in the first place, the night is much more bearable.

Try and spend one night in the area- some Church bells ring throughout the night (like the Church near us in the UK) some do not. We live next to a Church here and the bells ring at 12 noon and 10 midnight- then at 7pm on Saturday night. Bells ring for funeral and wedding services, and for Sunday service at 10am about once every 6 weeks. So find out, from locals or by staying the night close-by, when THOSE PARTICULAR Church bells ring.

In the UK next to our flat- bells ring for the hour then each quarter (4 bells) so at midnight we get 4x4 bells + 12 bells! and so on, at 5am, 4x4 + 5. And once or twice a week they have bell ringing practice and peels for about 1h30 mins non-stop. They beat any Swiss Church bells I know

I cannot sleep with windows closed, Summer or Winter, rain or shine.

If you hadn't mentioned Morges I would have thought you were renting my apartment! In my experience living in Zug's main street, road noise is not an issue at all. You couldn't hear those cars and bikes that seem so loud on street level if you tried.

Church bells are an issue though. If you are like me you will get woken up occasionally, maybe once or twice a week. The noise indoors is not so bad, even with a window half open for a bit of breeze to freshen the house. However, it completely kills whatever balcony your apartment has. The bells ring very loud outside and it's just unpleasant to be there. As for the schedule, my church announces the hours from 6.30am to 10pm I think.

In my opinion it is not a deal-breaker if you're in love with the place, but something to strongly consider if you are choosing between two or more alternatives.

I do not know your location. My OH did once lived in an apartment, it was on a corner and right under the church. The whole flat would vibrate from the Church bells. The living room & that balcony went completely unused on that corner. Every year that flat comes up for rent. A few meters down the road was OK. It is complicated exactly where the property is for the direction of the noise of the bells
Yes keeping the bedroom window closed did lock out the noise, but who likes to sleep with closed windows!
Every village church varies how often the bells ring & how loud, so that is what suggest you check out for your necessary time.