Jones

One of the best bits about this time of year is that Flynn’s early walk is just about at sunrise. Today Romania put on a belter. It was so good I texted Jane and she got up early for a looky look.

Making the most of the early morning cold (7C when I first went out! Lucky we brought long trousers and woolly socks) we took Flynn for a walk up the opposite hill. We were joined by three street dogs who we think live around the monastery and cafes at the bottom of the hill but do part time work cadging off camper vans. Whatever, they all had great fun – these three were all pretty young and they spent most of the walk play fighting and chasing each other.

Before leaving we had time for a little maintenance. Our outside lights (well three of the… seven!) had stopped working just before we left. Our dealer, M&C in Hull, helped me diagnose a loose earthing lead in the cable-loom-from-hell.

Dog walked and lights fixed we were on the road for more monastery fun by 9am – the best time to catch a nun in the wild. Except for delays. We got stuck behind a herd of cows, a funeral, several horses and carts and a well aged wobbly cyclist.

So, slightly later than hoped; Moldovita or in full: The Church of the Annunciation of the Monastery of Moldovita or, for short: the red one. Notable frescoes here are a depiction of the siege of Constantinople. This siege was obviously big news in C16 as, despite happening in 626CE every single one of these monasterys seems to have a depiction. None as good as the one at The Church of the Annunciation of the Monastery of Moldovita though. Judge for yourself:

Earlier last millennia in Constantinople

In The Car Park Adjoining The Church of the Annunciation of the Monastery of Moldovita we bumped into a Belgian we’d originally met in Camping Păstrăvul a few days ago. He’s travelling on his own and is *very* chatty. This part of Romania seems like the NC500 – we keep bumping into the same people. Whatever, he chattered away at us for a while then disappeared. His parting words: “If we meet three times, I’ll give you a Belgian beer”.

Next monastery: the green one. In addition to the Siege of Constantinople we noticed something else all these places have: catering supplies of Holy Water.

Saints queueing up to besiege Constantinople

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This wasn’t the best though. Yesterday at Bârsana Monarstery (The wooden one) we saw this. A holy water TAP! 

Note that there’s a Hozelok connector on it  – no wonder these monasteries all have such lovely roses. If our hose had been longer we could have filled up Jones with holy water. Jane suggested if it really was holy water, we might be able to use it instead of diesel.

Then lunch, where we met…

He came good on his promise too, I now own a tiny can of Jupiler.

Next up: The Church of a Resurrection of the Monastery of Sucevița (the green one). Here the most notable fresco was of the ladder of virtue showing pious monks and priests ascending the 38 steps to divinity whilst the impious fell to hell – a bit like ecclesiastical snakes and ladders. Anyway, the ladder was being restored so we had to make do with The Siege of Constantinople (green version).

There are limits to how many frescoes and monestaries you can see in a day no matter how many colours they come in. Mine is higher than most but even I was done by now. Jane was looking at her watch by the time we’d seen six sieges of Constantinople.

We went over one more mountain pass – Jane’s fear of heights continues to be normal not gibbering in the corner shouting “make it stop!” – to Camping Christiana near to Humor Monestery (red and brown). But that is a Siege of Constantinople for tomorrow. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon contesting the Plantagenet wars in miniature: