The painted churches of Romania are  on the Unesco World Heritage Sight List and they are national treasures.  We saw three of the many in Romania and these 500 year old monasteries are just amazing.  Each are done in a predominate color seen in the backgrounds or clothing of the  Biblical characters.  These churches are surrounded by four walls with a single entrance and on the interior are two story apartments that house the nuns and priests.  The grounds have beautiful gardens with every flower in bloom: roses, four o’clocks, lilies, dahlias, zennias and some I have never seen.  Along the balconies of the apartments are hanging baskets and window boxes full of petunias of every color.  The churches were painted 500 years ago when most people were illiterate and the outside was painted with all the Bible stories in detail to teach the people through pictures.  Each church has all of the Old Testament stories illustrated, going all the way through the Last Judgement.  Each Last Judgement shows the people going to heaven on one side…with halos…reaching toward Jesus.  The ones on the other side are damned and sliding down a river inhabited by Devils and monsters.  Inside the churches, the walls are covered with paintings of major saints and the Apostles and they are large.  There are 365 saints painted and they are divided by phases of the moon and astrological signs so people could tell what day of the month it was and which Saint’s day it is.  The paintings are vibrant with beautiful colors and gold.  Every inch of the inside and outside is completely covered with these beautiful paintings as well as icons.  The icons are framed pictures with painted faces surrounded by clothes and crowns made of silver and gold, often studded with jewels.  When it is time for a service to begin, a nun takes a board that is about 5 feet long and three inches wide and hits it with a wooden mallet.  The sound alerts everyone that the service is starting and it gets faster as it gets closer…hurry, hurry.  All nuns and priests are just Romanian Orthodox clergy, there are no different orders or habits like in the Catholic Church.  In the service at one of the painted churches, a nun was reading the service…with no priest in evidence.  We really enjoyed seeing these beautiful churches and would have loved to see more.

Today, we went to a fortified church.  These churches were surrounded by high walls, often up a steep hillside.  In case of attack, the town’s folk could go to the church and be protected.  At this first fortified church we saw a little house with two rooms where couples contemplating divorce were locked into for two weeks.  One bed, one table, small quarters.  They worked it out – or killed someone is my guess.  Food and well water would have sustained the people during a siege.  At a later fortified church, apartment like housing was built for every family in the town.  Even today, food is stored on the church grounds in case of a disaster.  We saw Bram Stoker’s house where he lived in Transylvania.  Toured a beautiful church that is under reconstruction after being burned.  The town has statues of big Emus that are painted…sort of like the Pegasus statues in Dallas…or cows…is it in Chicago?  At some time, the town was famous for their emu farms.  I. Sorry I don’t have the names of the town’s rolling off my tongue…but Romanian is pretty unpronounceable for me…and the spelling has different letters that our alphabet doesn’t have.  I will say that every Romanian town we have been in has been clean, with wide streets and beautiful parks.  And flowers are everywhere.  They are in gardens, pots, hanging baskets, window boxes, in and around churches.  At home this time of year, all the flowers would be cooked…but this country is a-bloom!  One of Romania’s biggest crops is Sunflowers.  Huge fields of them all over.  Now for a little Italian lesson…in Italian, sunflowers are called girasole.  Gira means to turn – where the words gyroscope and gyrate comes from – and sole means sun.  And, in case you don’t know, sunflowers turn to follow the sun during the day.  And, when it rained, the sunflowers all bowed their heavy heads toward earth.  More to come….

Will be telling you about the houses and food later.

Today we drove to a town that has a famous church that we were going to see before checking into our hotel.  It was raining, but the 179 steps up to the church were covered, sort of like a covered bridge.  We got,up,there only to find out the church was closed!  So,we hiked back down.  All 179 steps.  Our hotel was an old place in the town with lots of old buildings built around a town square.  It rained all day on our drive and this has cooled everything off.  We wandered around the town, hitting some of the shops, rested up and then went to a restaurant in the house where Vlad the Impaler was born.  Vlad and his father were known as Devils and in the Romanian language that word devil sounds like Dracula…and that is where Bram Stoker got his inspiration for Dracula.  Vlad had been sent off to a type of prison as a child and endured travesties there.  So,when he became an adult and had power, he impaled his victims…but he was not a vampire and didn’t drink blood.  Romania really isn’t known for vampires at all.  Bram Stoker just had a fertile imagination…and the Dracula he wrote has never gone out of print.  The next morning after breakfast, the group hiked back up to see the church that was closed yesterday…and it was closed again today.  So,after the hike back down, we went to the clock tower and climbed up it for the view.  That’s it for today…

after breakfast we began touring Bucharest….a beautiful city with beautiful buildings.  The churches are Romanian Orthodox mostly.  We saw an old church that is the church of the Patriarch of the Church.  It is Sunday and the faithful are in attendance.  Women wear headscarves.  Everyone, except the elderly and inferm stands.  They cross themselves three time and bend each time and touch the floor.  That is the modern way.  Usually they would cross themselves, kneel on the floor and prostrate themselves, get up and do it again.  The churches are beautiful, inside and out.  Inside are painted walls with saints, flowers, and icons are everywhere.  Everyone kisses the icons and just about anything else that can be kissed.  The music was piped in, but was very lovely.  Candles are placed in covered stands outside the church…one area to be lighted for the living, and one area for deceased people.  The service normally lasts three and a half to four hours.  Quite an aerobic workout!  

We went to Victory Square where The Dictator gave his last speech before he flew off in. Helicopter to his execution.  The buildings are neoclassical French.  A statue of the first of three kings of Romania is in the square…Carol I.  He was followed by his nephew, Ferdinand, followed by his son, Carol II.  

Then we went to see the Parliament building…a huge white building that is the second largest in the world after our Pentagon.  It is supposed to be absolutely spectacular inside and we will do an interior tour our last day here in Romania.  More later….

after breakfast we began touring Bucharest….a beautiful city with beautiful buildings. The churches are Romanian Orthodox mostly. We saw an old church that is the church of the Patriarch of the Church. It is Sunday and the faithful are in attendance. Women wear headscarves. Everyone, except the elderly and inferm stands. They cross themselves three time and bend each time and touch the floor. That is the modern way. Usually they would cross themselves, kneel on the floor and prostrate themselves, get up and do it again. The churches are beautiful, inside and out. Inside are painted walls with saints, flowers, and icons are everywhere. Everyone kisses the icons and just about anything else that can be kissed. The music was piped in, but was very lovely. Candles are placed in covered stands outside the church…one area to be lighted for the living, and one area for deceased people. The service normally lasts three and a half to four hours. Quite an aerobic workout!  
We went to Victory Square where The Dictator gave his last speech before he flew off in. Helicopter to his execution. The buildings are neoclassical French. A statue of the first of three kings of Romania is in the square…Carol I. He was followed by his nephew, Ferdinand, followed by his son, Carol II.  
Then we went to see the Parliament building…a huge white building that is the second largest in the world after our Pentagon. It is supposed to be absolutely spectacular inside and we will do an interior tour our last day here in Romania. More later….

We left Tallinn very early, flew to Amsterdam, changed planes and flew to Bucharest, Romania.  We were met by a driver and taken to the hotel.  My first impression is of a beautiful city with huge old houses that are now foreign embassies or private homes.  And the city is full of beautiful and big gardens.  Our hotel is nice and we walk to a restaurant and have sour soup, chicken and mushroom blitzes and grilled chicken wings with cucumber sauce.  Back to the hotel to await the group we will tour with.  (With whom we will tour).  We meet for dinner in the hotel at 7:30…we have a mother, her two daughters (one in high school one in college) and a friend of the girls…from Switzerland.  A man and wife from Holland.  Two sisters from Holland…one speaks a few words in English.  A woman from Australia traveling without her husband, a woman from Australia traveling without her boyfriend, a college professor (French History) from Boston and two men from Brazil I am presuming to be partners…they speak Portuguese.  We have our guide, Peter who speaks English and Romanian and a second guide, Michael, who speaks Romanian, English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.  This language situation sounds a little like the Towel of Babel.  Wonder how confusing this will be?  Guess we will find out.

Today, we went on another tour near Tallinn, Estonia.  There were eight of us with the guide.  The guides we have had the last three days have been young, smart and really know their stuff.  All under 25 with at least three languages they are fluent in…English, Estonian, Russian…then Spanish or French or German.  Today we went to a beach.  Very Sandy with not too many people on a day that was a bit chilly.  Then we headed to another waterfall and Forest area.  The waterfall was more impressive that yesterday’s fall, but not as tall.  On the property was another Manor house that looked like a castle, and there was a small chapel next door.  We went to a wind farm, making electricity and it abuts a defunct nuclear power station.  It will be able to be dismantled in the 2040’s.  It does nothing now except store nuclear waste.  Then we went to lunch at a small pub.  We are outside under a cherry tree near a mint and rhubarb patch.  I had borscht, port roast studded with garlic cloves, and boiled potatoes with dill and sour cream.  Did I ever tell you that we cannot get dill nor sour cream in Italy?  Well, we can’t   We had fresh rhubarb cake right out of the oven.  Another wonderful meal.  Off we went to a monastery built in the 1200’s for Cistercian monks who helped bring Christianity to Estonia.  When lightening hit the monastery centuries ago and it burned, a manor house was built across the courtyard and today it is a  lovely hotel.  From the monastery, we went to a prison.  At one time it was so low security, they allowed prisoners to go home for two weeks at a time. It later became a maximum security prison and now it is empty and will be dismantled at some point.  Originally the prisoners worked at a limestone quarry next door.  After the prison was closed, the area around the quarry was flooded and today it is a huge lake with some big cement block houses in the middle.  Lots of people were there sunbathing today, and swimming and kids were climbing inside the house to the second story and jumping into the lake.  One of the guys on our tour had brought a suit, so he changed and went swimming..said it was very cold and very refreshing.  Past of the Baltic Sea freezes in the winter and people are allowed to drive on it.  Very strict rules…under 20 km per hour or over 70…less vibration for,each of these speeds to avoid ice break up.  You cannot wear a seat belt…the only time that is allowed…and the door to the car must be cracked open a bit.  Sounds a bit outside my comfort level…and can you even imagine how cold it must be for the sea to freeze solid enough to drive on?  The last stop of the day was to see a defunct Soviet aircraft.  Today, it houses a model airplane club inside.  We got to go inside and sit in the cockpit and even climb on the roof.  Even though they tried to scrape off the Red Star off the wings and tail, they can faintly be seen.  We were asking questions of the guide, when a darling 14 year old boy with flaming and curly red hair and freckles said, ‘I can answer the questions for you’.  Perfect English..considering he is from Greeley, Colorado with an American mother, Estonian father.  They are here as Naptist missionaries.  The young man, Theo Magi (pronounced Maggy) flies a model glider, wants to be a fixed wing pilot in 4 years Whe. He is old enough.  He was so smart and personable…and I told him Imwas going to keep an eye out for him!  Evidently he had placed 2nd in an important model airplane competition this year.  Tomorrow, bright and early, we head for Amsterdam and then Bucharest, Romania for an 8 day tour of Romania.  So that is all of Estonia.  It is a beautiful country I wouldn’t mind visiting again.  But NOT in the winter!  Good night.

Today we met our tour group to go to the Lahemaa National Park in Estonia.  There were 6 of us.  Two ladies from Austria and a young woman from Tokyo.  And our guide, a darling 22 year old ‘wealth of knowledge’!  First, we went to the largest waterfall in Estonia.  It was lovely, but I’ve seen bigger waterfalls at private swimming pools.  The water is low this time of year and it would be more spectacular of the width were larger as it will be later…and in the winter when it freezes I imagine it is beautiful.  We then went to a Manor House.  A HUGE house in terrible state of disrepair.  It was built by the Teutonic (German) Knights during the 1500’s.  When Hitler called all Germans back to Germany, this family left and now a private family has bought the Manor and wants to restore it and make it a hotel.  Don’t think this will happen in my lifetime…but it will be spectacular when and if it is finished.  We then went to a Russian submarine de-magnetization station from the Cold War.  The submarines would get magnetized going thru the water…something to do with physics…so they would wrap wires around the submarine to de-magnetize it so it wouldn’t show up on radar.  I never could get a real grasp on how this was accomplished, as the place is pretty much in ruins…but it is in a beautiful cove off the Baltic Sea.  As a side note: Estonia has 1500 islands and some are for sale.  Finland has only two islands.  They are NOT for sale. On our drive today we saw a Moose Crossing sign.  Saw no moose!  I would have loved that.  The. We went to a little fishing village to a home and museum to have lunch.  The owner of the museum has collected boating antiques and memorabilia for years.  He and his brother hold the worlds record for underwater swimming!  Quite a character.  He is also an artist.  He smoked salmon steaks for our lunch in a big metal smoker and they were the best I’ve ever eaten.  We sat outside in a little covered patio area, looking at the sea.  Huge bowls of boiled potatoes with dill were passed and a cucumber/sour cream sauce.  Had black bread and butter, honey, coffee, tea, strawberry water and blueberry cheesecake for dessert.  A fabulous meal!  After lunch we went to another little fishing village that had old style typical houses with a reed roof.  Done properly and maintained they last 50-60 years.  In a park, there is a swing.  Estonians hold an Olympic record for swinging.  This is a big wooden thing with platforms and handrails.  Six people get on the swing facing each other – three on each side standing up. And they start swinging, and this thing can go 360 degrees over the top bar!  How they hang on is beyond me…must be another physics thing!  The girls tried it and I took pictures.  I may be a lot of things…crazy perhaps, but I’m not stupid!  One of these house we saw in this village had a bid moose head carved on the side of the house…protection from evil spirits.  Then we drove to another Manor House…this one completely restored.  The out building consist of a museum, a hotel and restaurant and several cottages, perhaps part of the hotel.  This is a popular place for weddings and a beautiful setting.  Once a year, there is a costume ball and people rent 18th century ball gowns for the event.  This place was built by another Teutonic Knight family…and left when Hitler called.  Our last stop was The Bogs.  During the Ice Age, this part of the Baltic Sea was a frozen mass.  As it warmed, water was trapped and became a bog.  The water is acidic and no bacteria can live in it, but they have found perfectly preserved bodies in the bog.  It is a beautiful area…first a forest with pine and spruce and lots of small blueberry bushes as undergrowth.  We picked and ate the tiny wild blueberries.  Going further in towards the bog, the terrain changes to stunted pines, lots of heather and some funny flowers at the end of a stark bare stalk.  These white flowers are poisonous and dangerous.  If there are too many in a bog area, just smelling them can make a person dizzy and disoriented.  They can be used in small, proper amounts for medicinal purposes and are part of the rhododendron family.  Walking thru the bog, there is a wooden bridge the entire way so you don’t get bogged down!  We came back to Tallinn and went to dinner.  I had cucumbers…tiny ones sliced with a sour cream and honey sauce and a fish soup.  Clear vegetable broth, dill, carrots, tiny onions and chives, potatoes and pieces of salmon and cod.  Delicious.  Home. Hot Shower. Bed.  A great day with our 9 hour tour!

Today, we had an almost 4 hour walking tour.  Our guide was a lovely young lady who was born here, but has lived in Scotland, so she has a wee bit of a brogue.  We started by seeing some of the buildings and churches in Old Town and then climbed about a jillion stairs up to the Old, Old Town way above the city.  There you can see the watch towers and parts of the original medieval walls.  And, there are some spots to overlook the town below and another spot to see the Baltic Sea and the ships.  And a hot air ballon!  We continued on to the Parliament building that was in session today as noted by all the cars in the parking lot.  Across the street is a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church with black onion domes.  We went inside and it is very beautiful with many altars, huge chandeliers and stunning icons.  All of the women wore head scarves.  At one time, the Soviets wanted to tear it down, but there wasn’t the money to do so, so they left it.  Most of the other churches in Talinn are Lutheran.  After the church, we walked thru a market place where all kinds of things are sold daily:  clothes, shoes, household items and beautiful fruits and vegetables.  Jars of pickles, berries, honeys, and there is a meat market inside a building.  The market is made up of small stalls.  We then Walked thru a beautiful park with children playing and lovely fountains.  A little dog was playing in one and in another two boys were racing their boats made from two plastic bottles tied together with an attached sail.  Looked like little Lego people were attached to help steer.  We found out the park had been a cemetery, dating back to the 1500’s, but during the Soviet occupation (after WWII) they decided to bulldoze the cemetery in the 1960’s.  The bodies were left in their graves.  Just no tombstones any longer.  Oh, that was another thing for sale in the market…different granite or marble tombstones…ready for engraving.     Then we walked to an area full of wooden houses that were built by the Russians after WWI.  They are apartment houses, with small apartments.  Many are covered with peeling paint and in need of scraping and painting, but some have been beautifully restored.  Many have the original gingerbread trim and all are colorfully painted.  The we walked along a path and could see the harbor of the Baltic Sea.  There are ferry boats leaving hourly for Finland, and if we had known about them, we would have gone instead of booking tours.  It takes two hours to reach Finland.  There was also a mega cruise ship docked…so we figured we would see all of the cruise ship folks back in town.  Finally, we ended up back in the Old Town Square where our tour ended…and yep…the cruise folks were there enmasse.  There was a big market going on today in the square.  All sorts of small kiosks selling souvenirs of all kinds.  Wooden toys and kitchen utensils, lots of linen cup towels, place mats and table runners, knitted sweaters, hats and socks, stuffed animals etc.  We had lunch in the square and then We split up to wander and shop.  There is a pharmacy in the square that has been in continuous operation since 1422…that made it 70 years old when America was discovered.  I met a lady there…off the cruise ship,from Noonan, Georgia…and Imtold her I had been there…it is famous for its beautiful AnteBellum houses.  My friend, Susie and I drove the streets looking at the houses on our famous road trip years ago.  (But that’s another story!). I went into lots of little shops, took some pictures, bought water and some merangues and finally hobbled home to lie down awhile before dinner.  The stairs going up and down from the Old Old Town and all the cobblestones had plCes hurting I had forgotten I had.  At dinner time it was raining and we were tired, so we ate in the hotel…it was quite good.  Now, after a HOT shower and some ibuprofen, we are in bed.  More tomorrow after our forest tour…by bus.  See you then.  

I got up at 3 this morning…2.5 hours before the alarm.  You would think after all these years I would be over being excited about an airplane ride to a new place.  We went to the airport and caught our flight to Paris, then changed airlines and flew to Tallinn, Estonia.  It isn’t too far from St.Petersburg, Russia and is across the Baltic Sea from Finland.  We were met by our driver and were taken to a very nice hotel that is about a 10 minute walk to Old Town.  We went there for dinner at a place recommended by our Hotel.  I had Pork Shank, with turnips and loganberries.  Very good.  Andy and I shared a split pea soup that was delicious.  It had a big dollop of sour cream or perhaps cream cheese mixed with rye.  We ate some black bread that is a rye bread…it almost tasted like date bread…not at sweet, but very good.   This was a typical Estonian meal.  Also had some cooked shredded cabbage and roasted potatoes.  A heavy, but very good hearty meal.  Got back to the hotel and ready for bed.  We are hoping for smoked salmon and pickled herring for breakfast tomorrow.  We go on a walking tour tomorrow of Old Town, so will report on that tomorrow.  Good night!