Blogs from Suceava, Suceava, Bucovina, Romania, Europe

The day started off with my foot feeling a bit better. I don't envy poor R. the past few days. He is a serious walker by nature whereas I have always been a stroller. Add to that my lingering limp and I'm sure he wanted to scream more than once. Today I head out to the museums. As I was walking down the street I saw a backpack sitting on the side of the road atop a pile of debris. I looked around and no one was in site. It looked battered, but still a little too nice to be trash. I looked in it to see if there were any indentifyable things of value to tuen over to the authorities. As I rooted through some random clothes some guy can up to me. He was ... read more

The northern part of Romania is home to painted monasteries from the 14th and 15th centuries. The monasteries of Bucovina, near Suceava, were beautiful. It was incredible to witness the vibrancy of the frescoes both inside and outside the churches. The details are still intact and in some cases appear to have been painted within the last 100 years rather than during the 14th century. Monica was a great tour guide and keeps a lovely hostel in Suceava which she cares for and continually beautifies with her green thumb. She even traded plants with the nuns at a couple of the monasteries! Suceava itself isn't much of a place. Small town without much to see or do, but there is great ice cream and lots of parks to stroll around in during the evening light.... read more

Went on a tour to the 4 painted monastaries in Moldovia....and today is St. Elijah's day!..big thing for the Orthodox.. They are very nice! There are paintings from the outside to the inside.. Using plants..painted on plaster.....Surprised how long they last actually!! These are all very old! They have many Christian stories painted on it and some are even in unique Romanian style!! The hostel I was in the owner was ta licenced guide so she gave us a lot of information about them!!! Very interesting and I learned a lot more about Christianity indeed! Each of these Unesco Monastaries have a theme colour....Red/Blue/Yellow, which represent the Romanian Flag! then the last one is Green, representing the green surroundings....cool ne! They also have the famous Black Pottery here. They are coool! Very light...but strong... too ... read more

From the Maramures we went over the mountains to Southern Bucovina, where there are a number of painted monastries. Weve read the monastries are a few hundred years old, all on the UNESCO world heritage list and have gorey paintings of stories from the old testament on the inside and outside walls. We´ve been enjoying our time in Romania so much that this was certainly good enough an excuse for us to go to explore another region of the country... Due to the lack of tourists up here, there are again no campsites in this region. Since weve been told you can stay at the monastires and there are plenty of them, we drove up to one and tried to find a monk. Its seems we hit evening mass time as they were no monks to ... read more

It seems that I exist in a time vacuum, having no concept of the days of the week, or the uncanny ability that time has to fly by. Really it's unbelievable to me that it is now August, another month is gone, and another country awaits. However, the next stop will not be reached without a considerable amount of suffering as my train trip from where I am now in Suceava, Romania to Kiev, Ukraine will take me roughly 23 hours. I can't say that I'm very much looking forward to this one, especially considering the last few trips I've taken on trains here in Romania where a simple 3 hour train can turn into a ride from hell when you understand what the "gypsy factor" is. Basically what that means is that you're on a ... read more