Magical Monastery Tour

On Saturday, a few of the other high school teachers rented a bus for the day and invited me along with them to make a tour of some of Moldova's many monasteries. We went to three different monasteries in different parts of the country (since Moldova's pretty small crossing it takes maybe a little more than two hours.

First we went to Saharna which is in the east, on the Nistru river. It was really neat, as it was one of the monasteries that were dug into the limestone cliffs during the 1400s. We also went to a place call Capriana in the center of the country. This was by far the most ornate church I've seen next to St. Peter's. My host dad was telling me that All of Moldova got together in 2000 or so and everybody donated a little bit (maybe even 5 lei, or 50 cents) and they rebuilt it to erserve it for future generations. I don't know how much it cost, but the entire place is really pretty.

I can't remember the name of the third place we went, but it was also interesting (although, to be honest, I was kind of monasteried-out by the time we got there and couldn't appreciate it as much as I should have.

It was an interesting time to go too, as the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox church just died this past week. I didn't notice if they were mourning him ina special way, but then again I didn't understand anything of what they were saying in the services.

(note: I didn't take these picture, these were what I found on the internet. I still haven't found a reliable way to upload photos here.)