The Semi Submerged Church at Curon Venosta

Image by Snowdog

Some time ago Weburbanist did a fantastic article entitled 7 Submerged Wonders of the World, highlighting an astounding selection of underwater cities, monuments and statues.  Here’s one with a twist!  This semi-submerged bell tower is all that can be seen of the church at Curon Venosta, a small Northern Italian town flooded to make way for an artificial lake.

(Images via Luca Lorenzi (left) and Frederik Schulz, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0)

In winter, when the lake freezes, the old church tower can be reached on foot.  Something of a local landmark, it has received restoration work to protect it against water freezing in cracks within the masonry.

Image by Cane Rosso

Legend has it that on a cold winter’s day the bells can be heard ringing out across the lake.  It’s hardly surprising that such a strange setting has carved its place in local folklore, but any logical explanation for the eerie chimes is defied by the fact that the bells at Curon Venosta church were removed years ago, before the lake was flooded.

Images by vetrone

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