Mike Fuhrmann’s “Time passes noisily in a Portuguese clock museum where the ding-dongs of thousands of clocks clash”
SERPA, Portugal — Time marches on, so it is said. But inside Serpa’s clock museum, that march is more of a pileup, with the seconds, minutes and hours crashing into one another and careening off in all directions.

About 2,000 clocks and watches, all in working order, are displayed in a former 16th-century convent in the historic centre of this white-washed southern town near the Spanish border.

Some play melodic snippets of “Ave Maria.” Others ring out the hours Westminster style. At random moments they overlap, producing a jangling cacophony of bells, gongs, chimes and cuckoos.

And in the background there is the steady tick-tock of swinging pendulums, a reminder of bygone days when time passed noisily and not as the silent digits on a smartphone.

During a tour through small rooms crammed with time-keeping treasures it becomes readily apparent that no two clocks here tell the same time. Or if they do, that would be purely accidental, says museum guide Sofia Rocha, explaining that the lack of synchronicity is by design.

“Imagine if all of these clocks rang at the same time, bam, bam, bam. People would hear it in the town square and we would go crazy,” Rocha says. “Impossible.”

Rocha, 24, has worked here for two years, long enough to become overly familiar with clashing clock sounds.

Opened in 1995 by a local private collector, Antonio Tavares d’Almeida, and since passed down to his son, the museum (in Portuguese, Museu do Relogio) employs six watchmakers to tinker with exhibits ranging from American-made chapel clocks and Portuguese cuckoos to a Russian navy chronometer. None uses batteries, so winding up the collection is a laborious task, although the watches are not kept running year-round.

Rocha points out curiosities such as a fold-up pocket sundial, and an ingeniously low-tech candle alarm clock: when the wax burns down to a pre-selected point, a metal piece falls onto a plate and wakes the sleeper up, if all goes as planned.

The eclectic miscellany also includes a limited-edition Beatles wristwatch, dozens of pocket watches and one stylish item — a 1935 Picasso-designed ladies watch in wavy-edged steel — meant to be worn on the upper arm as an unusual conversation starter. Since the wearer cannot see the watch face on her arm, she asks a suitable gentleman to kindly tell her the time, and what follows … follows.

The oldest exhibit is a rare 17th-century bronze table clock made by Edward East, watchmaker to England’s King Charles I, who, on his way to having his head chopped off for treason, is said to have given another East clock to a companion as a keepsake. Contemporary brands include dazzling examples from high-end Swiss watchmakers Patek Philippe, F.P. Journe, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Tissot.
Rocha explains that a clock’s ding-dong varies in length depending on the quarter-hour. To demonstrate, she spins the hands of an antique wooden clock, but at each stop it plays the wrong tune. “It is confused,” she says.

Just then, a grandfather clock begins striking 11 o’clock. It sounds dignified and dependable. Before it is finished, a wall clock clangs out five. It sounds brash and insistent.

Neither one is correct.