For miles the countryside rolled out before my appreciative eyes, with hardly anything to remind me it wasn't the 16th century.

Looking straight down, however, was a sobering experience, suspended as I was on this iron platform, whipped by the wind.

Deciding I'd had enough, I began my climb back down the tall, thin ladder facing the giant bell, when, "BONG! BONG!"

The sudden, earsplitting sound startled me, and for a sickening moment I thought I would lose my grip on the ladder. My unprotected ears rang like the aftermath of a heavy metal concert, and I clung to the iron rails, stunned and shaking.

"Whoa! Are you O.K?" The people on the platform above me shouted down to me.

"Thank God it's two o'clock," I called up to them. "If it was noon, I'd have been a goner for sure!" We all broke out in the relieved laughter that follows the shock of a close call.