Archive for Manastire

Pestera si Manastirea Sf Ioan Casian – Monastery and Cave

Posted in Beautiful Romania with tags , , , , , , , , , , on 17 February 2011 by Watcher Romano

Saturday February 12th I was inspired enough to take part in JCI Constanta’s JCI Play 4×4 event. It was announced as a softroad expedition combined with outdoor activities and networking. It turned out everything we had hoped for and then some.  I will not post photos from the offroad part, because we just put on a bit of a show to entertain the audience, and there were enough photographers concentrating on that. What I will show you are some photos I managed to grab at the final point of our trip, the Sf Ioan Casian Monastery.

The monastery is still under construction (being quite a young monastery) but it features a cave, the original cave where St Ioan Casian used to live. In order to get from the monastery yard to the actual cave, we did need to put our navigation skills to test, because the signs are confusing, to say the least and an autumn rain was starting to pour over us:

Descent on the hill to the entrance into the cave

Descent on the hill to the entrance into the cave

when we finished the descent we found out that we then needed to climb back a part of our descent, but this time on a much steeper approach:

St Casian Cave Entrance

St Casian Cave Entrance

On the “inside” there is a small praying area and a claustrophobic “room” that can only be accessed with a bit of crawling …

St Casian Cave - Inside

St Casian Cave - Inside

As it happens, by the time we got back down on the fragile-equilibrium cast-iron ladder and the back up on the improvised stairway, everybody else was already finishing their lunch. We thanked the organizers, shook some hands and took back to Constanta with this warm image making it’s way into the memories vault:

Sunset at Casian Monastery - HD

Sunset at Casian Monastery - HD

As you will find out by taking a look around, there are numerous posts on this blog about beautiful things to see in Romania and around the world. Check back frequently or use the RSS feed  or the  email digest options in order to get informed automatically whenever I post new stuff.

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Dervent Monastery

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Travel with tags , , , , , , on 30 August 2010 by Watcher Romano

The grand finale of my electrifying summer seaside holiday was the road back home, on the south side of the Danube. I chose this road because I really wanted to take pictures in two places I had visited before but did not have the camera with me. The Dervent Monastery is one of those two places. Why I find this monastery so special is it’s landscape. It is nothing like any other monastery in Romania. See for yourself:

I strongly suggest you visit this place, because everything about it is out of the ordinary: the landscape, the compound, the actual setting of the monastery is in one of the deserted places in Romania, although one would not imagine.

These pictures were taken in the very last part of an electrifying summer holiday I had this year. Here are more posts from this holiday. If you like colorful photos of  beautiful places, you’ve come to the right blog. Stick around, get a free notice every time new photos are posted (via RSS or email ).

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Ciolanu Monastery in Buzau

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 26 May 2009 by Watcher Romano

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:

Ciolanu Monastery Outside

Welcome to Ciolanu Monastery

Ciolanu Monastery Inside

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?

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

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.

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Never too young to beg

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Street photography with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 4 December 2008 by Watcher Romano

All but the most remote monasteries and churches in Romania have beggars around, and the One Wodd Monastery is by no means remote. I think the post about the monastery was complete the way it was posted, so here is the ‘Aftershock’:

Never too young to beg

Never too young to beg

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One Wood Monastery – Manastirea dintr-un lemn

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 3 December 2008 by Watcher Romano

Just 25 kilometers after Valcea, in the small village of Francesti, exists a lovely small wooden monastery that is said of being built out of the wood of just one tree! I know what you’re thinking: is it a very small church or was the tree HUGE?
Well, here’s half of the answer:

Manastirea dintr-un lemn

Manastirea dintr-un lemn

and this is the other half of the answer:

Secular Oak

Secular Oak

If you know anything about Romania, I think it’s obvious to you by now that somebody felt the need to also build a brick edifice at the ‘One Wood Monastery’:

Manastirea dintr-un lemn-Modern Building

Brick-made "One Wood Monastery"

What would a monastery be if it did not have a mystic story? This one is as follows: one day somebody (some say it was a monk, others say it was a shepherd) found an icon miraculously appear in a secular tree, so he cut down one of the trees and made the whole church out of it, hence the name.

Icon Revealed

Icon Revealed

Whereas fountains and wells are a great idea to have as miracle workers, because people who want to make a wish throw some money therein – simple! Here is the problem with having a miracle working tree:

Please STOP

Please STOP

This is a place I strongly recommend you to visit, because it has a very special charme, it’s quiet and colorful. To get there, take the DN67 from Ramnicu Valcea to Targu Jiu, and very soon, after some 15-20 kilometers you will find an indicator to the left “To the One Wood Monastery” (in Romanian :-p ). From there you have some more 5-7 kilometers on an asphalt road.

You can find more info on Wikipedia (Romanian). If you like this post, check back for more from the same trip (Horezu, Arnota, Polovragi, Pestera Muierilor). Or better yet, subscribe to get email updates or be cool and use the RSS feed to be the first to know when something new is posted!

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Namaesti – The Rupestrian Church near Campulung

Posted in Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 24 October 2008 by Watcher Romano

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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Candles

Posted in "Art" ??, Beautiful Romania, Black and White, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 1 October 2008 by Watcher Romano

Told you I had an obsession shooting candles at Churches and Monasteries:

In Memoriam

Romanians do keep the tradition of lighting candles separated in ‘for the dead’ and ‘for the living’.

This is a way for Monasteries to make some money since they are manufacturing the candles, but mostly a good opportunity for people to act / feel concerned about their closest ones: when you light a candle you say in your head the name of the person(s) whom you light the candles for. In the case of the dead, it’s in their memory.

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The Stone Ravens Monastery (Corbii de Piatra)

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , on 29 September 2008 by Watcher Romano

I visited the impressive Stone Ravens Monastery on 21 September 2008, in a one day trip that also included the Poenari Fortress. Located in the Corbi village, between Curtea de Arges and Campulung this is one of three rupestrian Churches in Arges, together with “Cetatuia” and “Namaesti“.

This 500+ year old church serves currently as yet another proof of the hard times Romanians had to endure during their permanently besieged history. All over Romania you can see regular people’s livelihood was very modest and poor, remote, secluded – easily to abandon when confronted with yet another invasion.Only the most important historical monuments are in military defensible places.

This Monastery was carved in the stone wall sometime before 1512 A.D. and it is said that it’s painting was never restored. With no further ado, here are the photos:

Stone Ravens Monastery

Stone Ravens Monastery - First Impression

Going up the stairs one reaches the stone wall’s feet:

Stone Ravens Monastery

Stone Ravens Monastery - Closer View

The interior: very quiet and modest, enchanting nonetheless:

Inside the Stone Ravens Monastery

Inside the Stone Ravens Monastery

You can see that this is actually a cave in the next shot:

Stone Ravens Monastery - Inside the Altar

Stone Ravens Monastery - Inside the Altar

If I’ve got your interest, here’s how to get to it (you should not regret it): take DN 73C from Curtea de Arges to Campulung, and in Domnesti, take a left to reach Corbi village. If you are in Corbi and you can not find the Monastery, you should give up traveling just ask any local. The road is good, cand be made with any car. Maybe Lamborghinis would have a hard time with the last 500 meters, but I am sure no reader of mine would take his Lambo to visit a mountain Monastery ;-) .

If you want to see the ‘official’ site, in which they describe what the monastery is not !?!, or to see a very ugly map or some ugly photos here it is.

UPDATE: It has been very kind of Michele to point out to me that an archaic word in Scottish for Raven is Corbie , which I found very interestingly close to the Romanian Corb (Corbi)! Thank you Michele!

I just have to come back to the first thing we saw entering the compound:

No animals, especially martens!!

"It is forbidden to enter the Monastery with pets: dogs, cats, martens, etc." !?!

We could understand the request of not bringing you pet to a holy place, and until the cats we had no beef with the sign, but the martens part really made us wonder about the habits of locals in the area.

If someone does not know what a marten is, IT’S A FREAKING WILD ANIMAL THAT PREYS ON SQUIRRELS, MICE, RABBITS etc. Here are the Romanian definition and taxonomy,  and a Google Images Search to show you this lovely pet.

If you liked this post, be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the blog (either by EMAIL or by RSS) because there are more pictures from this trip coming soon!

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