Romania Part 3

I have about worked my way through our Romania pictures – 1 more post on Romania to go.  Enjoy!

This is the fortified church in Axente Sever.  It is currently having the interior wall dwellings remodeled for guest accommodations, we saw a couple of the rooms and they were beautiful.  This church ended up being one of the best unplanned stops on our trip.  There is a museum on site that explains the history and uses of fortified churches along with Saxon living.  We had the opportunity to climb the bell tower again for outstanding views of the surrounding countryside.

This is a scene that I saw outside the church’s entrance.  I thought it was a great picture demonstrating the simplicity of life here in the villages.

This is a birds eye view of a typical Saxon home.  The entrance is walled off with a large door which has a smaller door within it.  Inside the courtyard they typically had a pig, chickens, an outhouse, maybe a well and perhaps an outdoor oven.  On one side of the property was a larger home that held the main family and it may or may not have an addition to house a young couple or the elderly parents, and on the other side there was a smaller house that housed one of the couple’s elderly parents.  They generally had a partial to full extended family living in a Saxon home.  Towards the back there was a barn that housed the food and hay for the animals and livestock.  The back of the property served as farm land where they grew produce, vegetables and other crops.  As you drive through these villages you always wonder what is behind those doors??

This is a view from the small village of Sibel.  It was a quaint little village at the base of the mountains.  The people were very friendly and the food was as fresh as it comes – milk from the local milk cow, sheep from the shepherds in the mountains, vegetables from the village and meat from a local farmer.  There is no processed food here only from scratch.

A lovely Romanian woman in the village of Sibel.  The Romanian’s faces tell such stories about their lives – I could have taken hundreds of pictures and listen to the stories of their lives for days on end.

This is the big square in the city of Sibui.  This square use to hold court for all the community issues such as trials, exacutions, etc.

Most of the houses/buildings in the medieval section of Sibui have eyes.  This was to show the enemies that someone is watching you at all times!  At first it is funny then after a while you look up and really do feel as someone is watching you!

This picture is taken from the little square in Sibui and has views of the Gothic Evangelical Church.  This square served as court for business matters.

Roof Tiles

We went to the ASTRA Ethnographic Museum which has over 120 traditional dwellings, mills and churches brought from around the country.  Each dwelling is original and was someone’s home, church or place of work at some point in time.  They disassemble each dwelling and reassemble it at the museum and restore it if needed.  Each part of the country has a different type of dwelling in the picture above notice the thatched roof.

Another type of dwelling found in Romania – notice the intricate fence and the walled entrance.  In the middle right the small structure is a corn bin to store the corn.  Their watching you again!

Flowers against a brightly colored dwelling.

Bringing in the hay outside of Sibel.  This really sums up rural Romania/Transylvania for me – its almost like going back to the late 1800’s early 1900’s in some ways, at least until you see the satellite TV dishes on the houses.

A friendly villager and his horse in Sibel.

This is the most beautiful church in Romania located in Curtes de Arges.  It was built between 1514 and 1526 with marble and mosaic tiles from Constantinople.  The local lore tells that the wife of the master stonemason, Manole, was embedded alive in the stone walls of the church in accordance with the local custom that obliged the mason to bury a loved one alive within the church to ensure the success of his work.  The story goes that Manole told his workers that the first of the wives to bring their food the next day would be the one entombed alive.  The workers went home and warned their wives, it was Manole’s wife (whom he didn’t tell because he was honest) who made the fateful visit and was buried in the wall.  How terrible!