A bright idea that brought the winter sun to the disbelieving folk of Viganella

Cape Times: A bright idea that brought the winter sun to the disbelieving folk of Viganella: "A bright idea that brought the winter sun to the disbelieving folk of Viganella

December 01, 2006 Edition 1

VIGANELLA, Italy: Once upon a time there was a small village in the Italian Alps. It was a lovely little town with a lovely sounding name: Viganella.

Founded by a bishop in 1217, it lay in a steep-sided Alpine valley, not far from the Swiss border, and clung to a rock surrounded by two streams of fresh mountain water.

It had a small church, a medieval tower and a pretty square, where all of the town's 197 inhabitants would gather around a fountain to celebrate the annual feast of the Virgin Mary.

But Viganella had a big, big problem.

Each year, on November 11, the sun would disappear behind a 1 600-metre high mountain to the south, leaving it in near-total darkness for 84 days in a row. Flowers would die, temperatures would plummet and laundry would take forever to dry.

The people of Viganella dreaded the arrival of winter.

They would take a look at the sundial drawn on the facade of their church and sigh. They would become sleepy and SAD - the medical affliction known as 'Seasonal Affective Disorder', a condition whereby the lack of sunshine reduces people's production of melatonin, a natural hormone, and makes th"