Romanias utrolige klostre

Suceviţa

Dere har alle hørt om skumle slott og flaggermus, men hvem søren hadde vel trodd at Romania i tillegg til strender, fjell og flotte gamle byer (les innlegget Romania sjokkerer!)også har en samling klostre som med ekstrem grad av garanti er unike i verden?

Moldoviţa

Klostrene er kjent som "De malte klostrene i Bucovina" i det nord-østlige Romania. Vi var et steinkast fra Ukraina, faktisk, langs denne ruten. Klostrene er selvsagt oppført på UNESCO's verdensarvliste, og ligger temmelig konsentrert, slik at vi lett rakk over fem av dem på to dager.
    Vi startet med Moldoviţa og Suceviţa, som begge er imponerende anlegg, bygget både for tilbeding og forsvar.

Et lys for en du savner, en du elsker eller kanskje en du enda ikke har møtt?

gong-gongen i Putna

Kun munker, i Putna.

Putna

Dragomirna

Grunnen til disse voldsomme veggmaleriene kunne Dana forklare. Klostrene har jo i sin tid også tjent som bastioner hvor soldater og landsbyfolk har søkt tilflukt eller hatt base. Mange av disse var analfabeter, og hadde minimalt utbytte av å bla i de hellige skrifter. Et kreativt hode fant da på å bruke de romslige inner- og ytterveggene som tavle, for med all ønsket tydelighet å forklare fordelen med å følge den rette vei.
    Dersom du tar de fabelaktige illustrasjonene nærmere i øyesyn, går det nok også opp for deg hvordan smådjevlene gjør alt for å trekke deg over i fristelse, mens kun de som holder sin sti ren, havner innenfor dørene til St. Peter. Temaene går igjen fra kloster til koster, men detaljene er vist på forskjellige måter, og fargene varierer. Innvendig får du kink i nakken, og er timingen heldig, forsterkes opplevelsen av at nonner eller munker bruker gong-gongen eller banketreet for å kalle til bønn. Som ved alle destinasjoner gjelder det å ta seg tid til å la inntrykkene synke inn.

Dana under sin egen skygge attmed klosteret Humor (ja, morsomt navn...)

Fargene friskes forsiktig opp.

Håndlaget og eldgammel - med fiolett bibliotekstempel!!

Voroneţ

De ekstreme takene ser klart ut til å ha være konstruert for å ta vare på kunsten, og fargene er overraskende klare oppe under mønet, mens hundrevis av års eksponering har bleket de områdene som er mest utsatt for sol og regn. Jeg lar bildene tale for seg selv, for her er det mye å meditere over. Ved Suceviţa ble jeg faktisk invitert av nonnene på mat, da jeg så de kokte en stor gryte med bønner. Det plumpet ut av meg at det så godt ut, og de sa jeg gjerne måtte følge med inn. Det kunne jeg dessverre ikke, nå som vi reiste i flokk.

"Gruppereiser" har sine fordeler og ulemper. Det er annerledes enn jeg er vandt til, selvsagt. Ikke desto mindre hadde vi det virkelig morsomt og lærte hverandre å kjenne på en ny måte. Det er godt å ha venner med felles reiseminner.

Jeg bare elsker endegavlen i Voroneţ - her har du himmel og helvete i alle regnbuens farger!

Men neste gang ... da skal jeg nok på tur alene igjen, ja... ;)

God Reise!

Interrail in five days!

I am going to Romania. It will be great. But in order to get there, I will take the train and visit a couple of good friends on the way. Beginning in Denmark, after a nice week with my parents, I try to buy an inter rail ticket in Frederikshavn, but you can't do it that way anymore. I have to take the bus to Aalborg and get it there. No problem, except I have forgotten that I have changed bank and I have a new code on my credit card. No customer service on a Saturday, but I manage to find a free Wi-Fi and fish out the four vital digits from the home page of Møre Sparebank just in time to get the train to Berlin and from there to Warsaw and further on to Krakow in the South of Polen.

Konstancja and Juri in their cool back yard

Krakow!

The journey takes around 30 odd hours, which is far more than I get to spend with my dear friend Konstancja and her great new boyfriend. I have to go to them first, as it is a long gone promise and they will be busy elsewhere later in the week. Our schedules to allow for a good dinner and a stroll around churches and sights in this beautiful town before I leave again, with the following afternoon train.

So ... how cool is this?

A lovely couple of friends and an odd ...

... couple of towers!

Paris is next. Well, after the detour to the Polish capital, where I can not get aboard the train just after midnight, as it is Russian. They are not part of the Interrail-system. I'll have to spend the night on a short wooden bench until the early morning train, then change in Berlin and go on via Frankfurt to Paris.
    I have written about the benefits of train travel before. You see the world go by your window while you tend your own business or get new acquaintances. So far, I am particularly charmed by the Polish staff on the trains. Great sense of humour and fine service.

Perfect. Simply perfect.

The stay in Paris will be for 22 hours, after nearly twice that time on the rails. Alice picks me up on the station and we spend the warm summer night chatting on the grass near the Eiffel Tower. Only Paris is Paris, and no place comes close on a wonderful evening like this. A bottle of red wine and good food among relaxed Parisians on the grass, with the absurd iron-construction towering high above everything. Simply great.

Thanks to the "green" mayor of town.

This is what tomatoes can look like!

Montparnasse...

    I use one of the many city-bikes, and Alice has her own, so getting around is easy. Being with her is always a great pleasure, but it will only be this evening and a quick breakfast, as she works tomorrow.

To me, this is one of the most typical sides of Paris. I love these buildings, and wonder who lives inside...

It is not hard to make people smile, "even" in paris.

Pouring the rosé.

What friends are for... sharing good times as well as the bad. A very good one here!

Always amazing.

When I am on my own again, I visit a fascinating cemetery in between Montparnasse and  Denfert-Rocherau. I never found this one before, and it is huge. Graves amaze me.
    Thanks to the metro, I arrive comfortly in time for lunch with yet another friend, Kristell, who I know from Oslo. She chooses a bar serving great food on tables outside and order a steak for herself. I prefer a big salad and truly enjoy it with the fresh rosé wine poured chilled into the glasses. It is a feeling of excuberant luxury to sit like this, with no hurry or stress what so ever. I have all the time in the world, and happen to spend a bit of it here, on a pavement served by a wonderful readhead.

Spending one afternoon in Paris sounds somewhat stressful, but if you have seen most of the touristy stuff before, you might decide to pop out of the metro near Trocadero and make a slow stroll along the Seine. Thousands of tourists are good entertainment and some touts try to trick you for money. The sun is shining and life is great. Behind Louvre I find a clock shop where a nice fellow I got to know in the north of Finland last year, works. We have a glass of wine before it is time to return to Gare de l'Est and aim for Germany for the third time this week.

As usual I have no reservation. The train is full. Or so they say. It rarely is, really, so I jump on, and find the restaurant carriage. It is not much of a restaurant, but offers four seats and some floor space. It all turns into a kind of a party. Even the German selling the beer is adding his gute Laune and good spirit, claiming I must buy three bottles as he is short of change. So I do.

Wanna cross the Atlantic with this Dude and a shipload of Rum? You can!

    One truly wonderful Dutch Guy has just got of his proud clipper, with which he has the most admirable sailboat project of Tres Hombres. He explains about some hairy plans for sustainable and fair transport in the future and we are joined by two charming Swedish women who are returning from the Santiago de Compostela-experience. It is a perfect night. All I have to do is to remember to get to the part of the train that are destined for Budapest, where I do a quick walk in the park before continuing to Bucharest. I have lost count of hours and days, but something like less than a week have passed since I left my parents in Denmark.

It has been just fine. Now time for Rumania!

Winter in Paris

Try to visit Paris without seeing the tower. Or the arch. Not even the most famous shopping street in Europe or the Church of Our Lady or The Holy Heart. Just settle in a corner - an "arondissement" of this huge city and stay there.

    My base was the 10th. It is fairly central. It has a rather spectacular park, which is now under vague influence of some snow.
    Parisians are afraid of snow in the city, by the way. At least it seems so. It is probably really difficult to look elegant on snow, with parisian shoes (although they manage extremely well in Moscow, but they have more practice, of course).

one chique, one running and one dogging

    I am not nearly as afraid of stepping in snow, as of skidding in turds. Dogshit, I mean. And you normally find a lot more of that, than of ice in this city, be it summer or winter.

You'll see - and possibly step in - a lot of this.

  In the early morning, they have a big market here in my area, where I felt almost like back in Egypt. I heard more arab language than French , among vegetable and fruit in that street. Actually, every district has a character. You may find one street consisting of entirely japanese restaurants, if you need one, or ten.
    Wherever you go, however, central Paris has become too expensive for poor people. That is, of course, not soo good for the poor people, but it is very nice for the rest of us, as it means that it is pretty safe all around, 'cause as you well know, poor people are a bit dangerous. Except in Cairo, but that is another story.

Not Alice, still red.

Alice and beardy men...

    Talking about Cairo, I have to say that I miss the smiles from down there. Parisians do not smile unless you really trick them into it. Some say it is because of the hard financial times. Others blame the winter. Personally, I think they only smile two days in spring. And most of them dress in uniformed black. I get so happy when I see something red, like I did one day in the subway. And when I walk with Alice. She has a red coat, so I will not easily loose her.



Talking about poor and rich, the reason why the traditional buildings have balconies on the second and top floor only, is that those where meant for the wealthy parisians. The rest of us could not afford that, and stayed in between. I like to see the stairwells of these houses, and Alice's stairs are not nearly as nice as Kristell's. But maybe even more charming.

 

That's the thing about Paris. It has charm.
    You can say a lot of nice things about Cairo, but charming is probably not the first word that would come in mind. Paris on the other hand, has charming bars and charming bakeries, cheeseries, restaurants and so on and so forth. I wish the people would be a bit more charming, though ... actually it is a mistery how they can generally be so good looking and chique practically devoid of charm. Charm probably comes from the inside, that might be why it is hiding behind the fanciness of garments and style.

  Even animals are styled here, if I am to believe what I see in pet shop windows. You can learn a lot from window shopping, I guess. And from avoiding the Tower, The Arch and The Sacred Heart, next time you visit Paris.

Enjoying a traditional French breakfast.

 Bon Voyage!
:)