Imagine Romania

We traveled with an excellent guide, Victoria.  She drove the car, which was quite something in itself, dodging everything from large trucks on mountain passes, horse wagons of which there were many, large potholes in the roads and passing every slow moving vehicle we could.   There are no expressways, just two lane roads with occasional passing lanes going uphill.   It was just the three of us.

While leaving Chisinau we saw this sign and had to stop to take a photo.


When I imagined Romania, I thought about repression under Ceausescu, world class female gymnasts and orphaned children.  What I learned about Romania today is that Romania has made great progress to modernize while keeping it's historical and cultural heritage.  What a wonderful place.  We spent 6 days driving through the areas called Bucovina and Transylvania areas that were beautiful and full of surprises.  These photos show some of the high points for me.  Bob took about 600 photos.

First stop Cherry Ristras!!  That was a surprise.  We bought a ristra and the cherries were delicious.  Lots of road side stands selling cherries and other things like honey and tourist toys.

Stephan cel Mare (chel mar ay) was an important historical hero and saint in Moldova and Romania.  This is a statue of him in Iasi and his fortress in Bucovina

The photos below are taken at some Unesco sites in Bucovina.  They are painted Romanian Orthodox monasteries.  They were painted inside and out during the 1400s and remain in this condition.  The walls on the north side of the monasteries are almost completely bare because the weather has destroyed the paintings.   The architecture is midevil gothic and the paintings are Byzantine style.  Beautiful.

Each linear section tells a story or paints a scene of religious teachings.  Because the peasants could not read or write, the monks taught them their religion through these paintings.  

There were not many tourists which was wonderful.  This nun was leading a tour of Germans.

The next stop was Solca where Bob's grandmother and grandfather (on his mother's side) was born and immigrated to the US in 1913.   Our first stop in Solca was to ask about the church and any information about the family name.   The information we received from this group was that half the town has his grandmothers maiden name and the other half of the town his grandfathers last name.

We found the church and the priest gave us a tour of the church.  Bob's grandfather  had sent money from the USA to this church, Romanian Orthodox Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to help purchase a church bell.