Painted Monasteries

  Suceava, Romania
Saturday, October 20, 2007

Beautiful Scenery

The High Class Hostel in Suceava, Romania is quite an establishment. Five years ago, Monika, who owns and nearly single-handedly runs the place, moved here from outside Bucharest to open a hostel. Not much more than 22, she and knowing no one, she opened the place on very little money and lots of good intentions. It almost wasn't enough, and after a long winter with only eight visitors, she was nearly bankrupt when Lonely Planet came out with their latest "Romania and Moldova" featuring her establishment as an "Author's Choice." She says she hadn't even known who the reviewer was until she got the book and looked at his picture. I guess Lonely Planet's sneaky that way.

In the spring, visitors started pouring in and three years later, business is going strong, with a

Voronet Exterior

new location opened this summer. Matt and I have travelled to Suceava together and alighting from a seven hour bus ride, were met by Monika's helper from the hostel. What service!

After a good night's sleep, we were up at 6 (ugh) to go on Monika's excellent monastery tour. The early hour was unusual, but four Japanese men were coming up from Bucharest by night train for a really long day trip and had to catch the 5-o-clock train back to the capital.

We piled into Monika's van and set off through beautiful countryside towards the first

Humor Monastery

monastery, me dozing off now and then and missing half the glory. In the 15th and 16th centuries, assorted rulers built some beautifully painted monasteries in the surrounding foothills. Every square inch of the interior and exterior was covered with paintings in the Byzantine style (skinny people, no 3D perspective) depicting Biblical happenings. Most of the exterior paintings are still in good shape, though over 500 years, the ones on the north sides have taken hard winter beatings.

Family Tree of Jesse

The souther facade generally contains the family tree of Jesse and often the story of St. Nikolaus. Entering the first room of the church, the Porch, a painting of the Last Judgment is  seen. The second room (of five) is the Martyr Room, containing paintings of the saints in various stages of torture and death. The Tomb Room follows, where the monastery's founders are buried, and in the fourth room, there is always a

Sucevita Monastery

picture of the founder and his family presenting a miniature version of the monastery to Jesus. The fifth room is the Altar Room, which we never saw, as only men of the Orthodox faith are permitted to enter.
 During our day, we visited the Humor, Voronet, Moldovita, and Sucevita monasteries.

Snow!!

Monika was an excellent tour guide, telling us just the right amount of information to be interesting, but not enough that we got bored. I would highly recommend her services.

Driving up one of the foothills, we hit snow. Winter is coming. Here's hoping I can travel south and towards the Adriatic fast enough to hold cold weather off another few weeks.