Medieval Monasteries

Friday, 7:00 am.  I have checked out of the hotel and arrive at the bus pickup point with my luggage.  Students and teachers are already aboard waiting for me. The bus driver looks at me with dismay. I'm on time.  What did I do wrong already?  He opens the back bus doors and the problem is immediately obvious.  There was no way even one piece of luggage would fit in this bus.  So I quickly open my suitcase and pull out what I think I will need for one night, throw it in my backpack and get on board.

I understand we have a four hour trip north into the mountains to see the medieval painted monasteries.  45 minutes into the trip, we pull over.  One little girl throws up on the side of the road.  A few boys decide to head into the woods to relieve themselves.  Next thing I know, everyone topples out of the buses and heads into the woods (excluding me, I'm not that desperate yet).  Half an hour later, we're back on the road.  

I overhear someone say the trip is 12 hours.  What?  Where are we going? I don't understand what's going on.  

Humor Monastery

At 10:00, we stop for "lunch".  Sitting at picnic tables at a gas station, everyone pulls out their picnic lunches.  Oops.  No one told me to bring my own food.   Luckily, my friends here are generous with tomatoes, cheese,  bread and hummus.  I contribute some crackers I buy at rhe mini-mart inside.

From Humor Monastery lookout tower

Back on the road.  A while later, we stop at what I think is a souvenir stand, but turns out to be the entrance to Humor Monastery.  Huh?  I thought it was a 12 hour trip.  I'm so confused.   The monastery is quite beautiful, and even more so when we climb to the top of the lookout tower and take in the view of the countryside.  

Back on the bus.  I have a conversation with one of the more fluent English-speaking teachers and find out we will be stopping at 5 monasteries on our way north, and staying overnight at the 5th.  Now I get it.

I'm so impressed by these medieval monasteries.  They date back to the 15th and 16th centuries.  The exteriors are painted with frescoes of Bible scenes.  Every square inch of the interior is painted with more religious scenes, and portraits of saints, monks, and always the family of the monastery's founders.

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This nun authored and autographed my book about Voronet Monastery.  
Marga (one of the teachers) on the right. 

Voronet monastery is noted for the disrinctive blue color in its frescoes, which has remained remarkably vibrant through the centuries.  This particular shade is known throughout the world as "voronet blue".   Check your crayola box.

Voronet Monastery

For me, Sucevita Monastery seemed the most beautiful. Oddly, one exterior wall of this monastery is not painted. Legend has it that the artist painting that wall fell off the scaffolding and died. After that, no other artist was brave enough to finish it.

Sucevita Monastery

Tiny house on Putna Monastery "campground"

We arrive at Putna Monastery where we plan to spend the night.  We walk through a campground dotted with tiny two-person "houses".  I wonder if we will be sleeping in those, but I'll have to wait to find out.  The monks are at Mass, and no one is available to show us our rooms.  We decide to have dinner while we are waiting.

Seated outside at long trestle tables, we are served vegetable soup and bread, followed by what i would call "German" potato salad.  it turns out the monks are fasting until Aug 15, and will nit eat or serve any meat, fish, eggs, cheese, or milk -- only vegetables and bread.

Dinner at Putna Monastery

Our rooms are in the main building.  I'm not sure, but I think they were former monk cells.  My roommates take out their soap and towels and head for the shower down the hall.  Soap and towels?  We were supposed to bring those?  Sigh.  One of the teachers makes an offering from a roll of paper towels, and another shares her soap.  So I survive.

I actually slept fine, with icons of saints I didn't recognize watching over me.  Wake up call at 6:45.  Roommate Corinna reads my mind and offers a cup of coffee.  Funny, I don't smell any coffee brewing, but "Yes!  I would love some". That much anticipated first sip was a a shocker.  Stone cold.  She had brought it in a thermos from home the day before.  I'm told that many Romanians drink their coffee cold.  Who knew?

Back at the trestle tables, we enjoy a delicious breakfast of bread with toppings (roasted eggplant, hummus, or jam), tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and boiled potatoes and carrots.  Everyone, including the children, wash it all down with big pitchers of HOT mint tea, while the monks chant "Hosanna!" at morning prayers in the background.

Ready for breakfast

Freshly fortified, we explore Putna Monastery.  It is not one of the painted monasteries, but is well known as the burial place of Stephen the Great, the 15th century Prince of Moldavia who fought against the invasion by the Ottoman Empire.  He is a national "super-hero".  He was canonized as a Romanian Orthodox saint for saving Christianity from being overrun by Muslim Turks.   Europe would be a very different place today had he not been successful.

Putna Monastery

Some of the gang at Putna

We leave Putna to head off for more sightseeing on the trip back to Barlad.  I'll save those adventures for the next post.