There is something about red brick against the blue sky that just screams ‘take my photo’ 
Budapest - Red Brick Church
Budapest - Red Brick Railway Station
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Curtea de Arges is home to the famous monastery built by Mesterul Manole, (which I’ll cover in a future post) BUT also to this hidden gem called “Biserica Domnească Sf. Nicolae din Curtea de Argeş“. On your way to the Curtea de Arges monastery, be sure to check this one too. The guide here is worth all the money 
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Yes, this is another ‘by night’ post. And so will be the next one too. That’s because I have to work more and more during my trips. (let the money pour in…)
St Mary’s Basilica in Krakow, Poland, has got to be one of the most opulent churches one can ever visit, in the world. Ever. It is simply grandiose. I have included several bad photos just to create the sense of magnitude:
St Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland
Huge Altar, St Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland
Detail, Huge Altar, St Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland
Suspended Cross, St Mary's Basilica, Krakow, Poland
Suspended cross, St Marys Basilica, Krakow, Poland
To find more about this wonderful church, here’s it’s Wikipedia Page (starting point for documentation). Please stay tuned (RSS or email) for more pictures from this trip.
PS: it was actually almost evening when we got in and night when we came out, that’s why the title…
Prahova Valley has a bad rep because of the fact that it easily accessible by car and is therefore filled with buffaloes. This is very unfortunate as the area is incredibly beautiful. To prove this, I submit to you the following pics taken in the surroundings of the Pestera Village, near Moeciu, Brasov, Romania:
Pestera Surroundings
Pestera Surroundings
The village also has a church under construction, but very well signaled (two villages in advance):
Holy Trinity Church in Pestera
Should you be interested to see this village for yourself, you have to start in Moeciu, and, coming from Bran, turn right and climb on top of the hill. You could also come from Zarnesti, go towards Prapastiile Zarnestilor and turn left at Fantana lui Botorog. This alternative has the advantage of first taking you to Magura village, and then on some dirt roads up to Pestera (more softroading).
Given that this is actually a village, the roads should be cleared and maintained at all times, so it would probably be no problem to go there in wintertime too (which will give you even more interesting photo opportunities).
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PS: if anyone knows a way in which I could share KML files with you on this blog, please inform me. It would really add value to the information…
Who says that the road back from anywhere should not be interesting? Departing from Luana Offroad Fest I stopped to visit Magura Sculpture Camp and neighboring Ciolanu Monastery.
Magura Sculpture Camp is yet another vestige of the (few) good things that happened during communism. Immense meadows host large stone sculptures, produced directly there by artistst between 1970 and 1986, in annual summer camps. But I digress, I do not have good pictures from that site, I found it very difficult to overcome the obstacles created by nature (slopes, trees, bushes) and still create powerful images of the site. I promised myself I would return.
The subject of today’s rant post is Ciolanu Monastery, the only monastery in Buzau as old as the XVI century. It shares the same location with the Magura Sculpture Camp. Here’s what you will find if you decide to follow my advice and visit this place:
Welcome to Ciolanu Monastery
Ciolanu Monastery Inside
I took the opportunity created by the presence of a large and noisy group of children and sneaked inside the bells’ tower to get a Ken Rockwell like photo:
Should I hae been here?
As opposed to numerous other monasteries, Ciolanu Monastery is relatively recently renovated and modernized. Still, the huge compound has an air of monahal solitude to it:
Monahal Atmosphere
If you want more info, this is the official website. If you plan to visit, it’s not at all har to get there: on DN 10 from Buzau tu Brasov, in the vicinity of Magura you will find a brown indicator directing you to DC 79 . You pass the mental institution and go directly to the Monastery and Sculpture Camp.
“I went to Sighisoara and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” . That’s what the post about my Sighisoara trip would have been titled had I not visited Biertan. Fortunately, due to lack of sites to show off, the Tourist Information Office also has a map of adjacent fortified churches.
Reaching Biertan is easy: on the road between Sighisoara and Medias, in the village Saros there is sign pointing you to Biertan. Once in Biertan, the fortified church is impossible to miss. What I found very interesting was the computer game – like scenery and light :
Biertan Church
Biertan Church - Inside
The atmosphere was quiet, relaxed and peaceful. As opposed to Sighisoara (!!) I was aloowed to take photos and show everyone else this beautiful place…
Besides the Church, inside the fortifications there are 2 towers. The first one houses a small ‘museum’ illustrating country life ‘back in the days’ :
Tower one - Museum
Tower one - Museum - Inside
Tower one - Museum - Inside
and the other one housing a crypt but nice to visit nonetheless:
Tower two - Crypt
Tower two - Crypt - Inside
I tried to visit another fortified church the same day: Malancrav. It was also advertised as ‘great’, so I drove a on a much more complicated track to get to Malancrav, but the church was closed and the key was somewhere in the village, quite far. As it was getting late I left for Bucharest…
I take this opportunity to thank all of you that kept visiting the blog in the time elapsed from the last post, and I promise that there are a lot more pictures taken and just waiting to be published. In order not to miss them, I suggest you use the EMAIL or RSS subscription methods.
Not to be mistaken for ‘Negru Voda Monastery” in Campulung, the “Cetatuia Negru Voda” is the last corner of the equilateral triangle of rupestrian churches in Arges I visited in October 2008. Each of the three (Corbi, Namaesti and Cetatuia) is special in it’s own way:
- Corbi is special for it’s solitude and modesty
- Namaesti is special for the miracle working icon
and Cetatuia, well, keep on reading!
The first thing that need to be said about Cetatuia is that it is considerably harder to get to it. That’s partly because you need to correctly identify where to stop and leave the car, although there are absolutely NO signs, and then because you have to climb to the top of a hill that is 881 meters high.
The first part is easy: you enter the village of Cetateni and look for the absolute worst place to leave you car unattended: across a half-demolished wooden bridge, near a shady building where gypsies abound. That’s right, THAT is the parking place. There is no other option, unless you want to go around, cross the river and leave the car in the middle of the gipsy village
Then you cross the bridge by foot and brace yourself for the climb! It’s not that difficult though, there are some steps and you are lead by the icons through the forest. You just need to leave the village behind and head to your right:
Leave the village, climb then turn then climb again
Very early in your ascend you find the sign that this is not an ordinary forest:
Early on there is the first sign that this is not an ordinary forest
And then you just need to follow the icons:
Icons show you the way
Follow the icons
Still more to climb
Just a little bit more left to climb
OK, you got it, there is a beautiful climb through the forest. Where does it take you? Here:
Cetatuia - New Church
As you might have noticed, this is not rupestrian. That’s because this is the ‘new’ building. Here’s the original church:
First Room, home to a catholic 'altar' - not shown here because it's just a carving in the stone wall.
and the church itself:
Cetatuia - Rupestrian Church
In the altar water runs out of the stone wall on the Christian celebration of ‘Healing Spring’ (Izvorul Tamaduirii). Or at least that’s what they say about it. Every church seems to host some miracles…
As most Romanian orthodox churches, this is also small, modest, quiet and secluded, proof of the very hard history we had, continuously besieged, never able to flourish.
There was a nice arrangement of candles around the icon in the left of the previous photo:
Icon and Candles
BUT WAIT!! There is more! Here, on top of the hill, there are much more things to see, for example the Wall of Angels, the Wishes Cross or the Thracian Rider:
The Wall of Angels
I find it very interesting that the painting starts with the hand of God. I have to apologize for the shot, I was not able to choose the time when I reached the place, and they would close soon so I could not wait for the ugly shadow to disappear 
Going further up, to the highest point of the hill, one finds the Wishes Cross:
Wishes' Cross
And if you go out of the compound and around to your right as you exit, you can find this rupestrian painting of a Thracian Rider, told to stand proud on his horse, as a memento of times long gone:
Thracian Rider
Going back down, you can find a junction in the forest road (actually you can not easily find it, there are lot of junctions, you’d better ask), you take this alternative route, follow it carefully so as not to fall on the steep hill covered in leaves and you can reach another platform where you can get an upward look toward the Wishes Cross, and where you can find this very interesting writing on another cross, sheltered by an old tree:
To the forefathers of our kin, Forgiveness
I have never seen such an inscription. I am still debating with myself if it means that we ask for forgiveness FOR our ancestors or TO our ancestors… Makes you ponder, don’t ‘it?
That’s it folks for today’s post, I think we covered enough ground (hill?). I still have some photos from this exact location, but with a different thematic, so I decided not to include them in this post, in order to keep it short (sic!) and with a profound tone.
BUT, stay tuned for more pictures coming soon! (I think this is a good opportunity to remind you about the technologies that can easily keep you tuned: RSS and automatic email delivery of new posts)
PS: THIS is the official site of this monastery.
Just 5 kilometers outside Campulung one finds the village of Namaesti, home to the George Toparceanu memorial house and to a second corner of the equilateral(?) triangle of rupestrian churches in Arges county.
This is a nuns monastery with a very nice compound, with flowers on every parcel of free space. On the flip side, because of it’s placement on a very steep hill with narrow alleys and a thick forest, photo locations are rare. The place is beautiful nonetheless, and I was lucky to get there on a warm, sunny autumn day:
Namaesti Monastery - Full Splendour
I think this angle best illustrates the charm of this place.
Of course I could not resist going on the top to get ‘another angle’:
View from the top
An interesting thing about the way this church is built is that the cross on the top of the tower is not facing the main entrance:
Namaesti Front View - Rotated Cross
BUT WAIT !! There is more! Inside the church there is a ‘miracle working icon’ which people come to visit from all over the country:
Miracle Working Icon
This page has some more historical info in English and these two are in Romanian ( 1 & 2 ). If you would like to go there, here’s a map to show you where it’s placed:
Namaesti on the Map
If anybody wonders about why use Microsoft, it’s easy. Google doesn’t have the slightest clue about Romania.
Ok, here’s just one more photo before we close up:
Pretty Unique Church Tower
If you liked this post, be sure to visit the Stone Ravens Monastery too and to check back for pictures from Cetatuia, the last corner of the triangle. If you do not want to check my blog every day, just click here to get updates automatically delivered to you via email or get this RSS feed‘s adress into your aggregator.
Last Sunday I went on a day trip to complete the triangle of rupestrian monasteries in Arges County. I had visited the Stone Ravens earlier this month and I still had to see Namaesti and Cetatuia Negru Voda, both in the vicinity of Campulung. I was lucky to find some friends that bought a new car, so they were keen to travel as the engine needed to be broken in.
We headed towards Pitesti and stopped at a gas station oly to get some shots of a beautifully coloured tree and then headed on towards Campulung. However, best practices show that if you are on a road and see any sign of a monument, church, etc, you should check it out. We did just that and found this incredibly beautiful photo location in a very poor village. I will not give you any travel details because I need to keep some mystery to go with the title, there is nothing spectacular about this church, apart from the setting I found on that specific day:
The Lost Church
Gateway to Heaven ?
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Every autumn for the last 4 years I went to the Austrian city of Villach for the ICL conference. This year was no different.
I find Austria quite boring, and the small city of Villach takes boring to whole new level. With a population of roughly 60 000 and situated on the Drau river, Villach is an important traffic knot on the A2 highway southwards. And that’s all folks! Literally.
Life in Villach stops at 1830. And I mean everything. Buses too. Restaurants too. You can find (3 or 4?!?) restaurants that are open until 2300 if you try hard.
On the other hand, there are some nice views in and around the city:
Pedestrian walkway over the river Drau
here’s one from the City Center around 21:00:
Villach by Night
OK, one more crazy panorama (156 cm @ 300 dpi) :
Pedestrian Walkway across the Drau River
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