9/6/08 Sat

We met up with Janet and Marcos Maestre at Heathrow, and boarded the plane to Bucharest (a 3-hour trip). Bucharest was hot - in the 90°s F. Bucharest is fairly flat, and reminds me of Puerto Rican towns. The architecture is very Spanish, and Romanian is a Romance language with many cognates with Italian and Spanish. Welcome drink and meet with our tour director, Nevena Robertova.

We checked into our modern hotel in Bucharest, the Radisson. The interior lighting was wild, and the main floor sported an "ice bar" made of blue-lit lucite.

Janet Maestre and I ended the evening by running out to a nearby internet "cafe." It was hard to find. Many of the buildings are much like the New Orleans French Quarter, built around a large central courtyard. The internet cafe had to be entered from the central courtyard, and was a single room in what had clearly been a very ornate and elegant dining or living room. The chandeliers (now electrified) were still there, and the ceiling was ornately carved. The computers looked very out of place.

9/7/08 Sunday in Bucharest

There was a revolution against Ceausescu in December, 1989. Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed on 12/25/1989. In the morning we had a city tour of Bucharest. This is an old city that has served as the capital of Wallachia and later Romania since 1659. Today, it is noted for its broad, tree-lined boulevards, well-kept parks, and mix of architectural styles that combine neoclassical, 19th-century structures with monumental 20th-century edifices (the latter built for the most part to satisfy the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu). The capital is often referred to as “the Little Paris” because of its wide boulevards. We saw the Arc de Triomphe commemorating the exploits of WW I soldiers, and we drove along Victory Ave. to Revoltion Square, where recent events in history are inscribed. We saw the Revolutionary Square. The Credulusco Church, the Capsa Hotel, the Chismigu Garden, Colganichano Square (Colganichano unified some of the provinces of Romania), the law university, the green-blue Giorgenescu Opera House, the Dumdovitza river, the yellow Karol Davida medical school, the gated residence of the President, the Military Academy and monument with wonderful carvings of Romanian history, the main Orthodox church (90% of Romanians are Christian Orthodox), and the Palace of Parliament, which is the 2nd biggest building in the world (the 1st is the US Pentagon), built to satisfy the egomania of Ceausescu.

There are 27 million people in Romania, with about 2 million people in Bucharest proper. One million cars create gridlock during the week. Romania earned independence from the Ottoman empire in 1897.

Children go to school from 7 years of age. Romania used to be the bread basket of Europe, because of its flat arable plains, but agriculture has been neglected by the government, and is not doing well.

Still Sunday, 9/7/08: The Caldarusani Monastery

In the afternoon we went to the Caldarusani Monastery, which lies 30 km. from Bucharest to the north-east, on the shore of the lake with the same name. It was built in 1637-1638 (the church was erected in 100 days from river boulders) by Matei Basarab on the spot of a former convent. The cellar to the right hosts nowadays the Thesaurus, where religious items are kept. Nicolae Grigorescu the most famous Romanian painter, studied at the monastery and painted many of the icons and frescoes there. A museum with icons painted him is on the premises. On the way there we saw a fountain dedicated to the myth of a talking sheep.

The monks get up at 5:30 am; prayer and breakfast, more prayer. They study. They copy and illustrate manuscripts. Their schedule is roughly 8 hours sleep, 8 hours prayer, and 8 hours work. “Caldarusan” means “little bucket”, perhaps from the annual blessing of homes and buildings with holy water from small buckets.

We had lunch at the abbot's house with the monks.