Romania: Summer Vacation 2022 - Day 15: Monasteries, waterfall and a Merry Cemetery
Our main destination for this year's summer vacation was Romania. Today we visited 2 more monasteries and then we had a nice hike to the Cascada Cailor - Horses Waterfall and we ended the day with the visit of Merry Cemetery and camping near nearby Tisa.
Previous days of our Summer Vacation 2022: Day 14 - 15791, Day 13 - 15790, Day 12 - 15789, Day 11 - 15788, Day 10 - 15787, Day 9 - 15786, Day 8 - 15785, Day 7 - 15784, Day 6 - 15783, Day 5 - 15782, Day 4 - 15781, Day 3 - 15780, Day 2 - 15779, Day 1 - 15778.
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| Our campsite near Suceava. |
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| Hill behind our tent. |
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| Back in our Angie - Toyota Auris. |
Our first attraction today was the Mănăstirea Sucevița - Sucevița Monastery.
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| Sucevița Monastery was built in 1585 by Ieremia Movilă, Gheorghe Movilă and Simion Movilă. |
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| The architecture of the church contains both Byzantine and Gothic elements, and some elements typical to other painted churches of northern Moldavia. |
Both interior and exterior walls are covered by mural paintings, which are of great artistic value and depict biblical episodes from the Old and New Testament.
The paintings date from around 1601, which makes Sucevița one of the last monasteries to be decorated in the famous Moldavian style of exterior paintings.
We continued over the pass Pasul Ciumârna (1100 m), where we bough some local stuff to the Moldovița Monastery.
The Monastery of Moldovița was built in 1532 by Petru Rareș, who was Stephen III of Moldavia's illegitimate son. It was founded as a protective barrier against the Muslim Ottoman conquerors from the East.
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| Stephen the Great, the Prince (in Romanian Domnitor) of Moldavia from 1457 until his death in 1504, fought 36 battles against the Ottoman Empire, winning 34 of them. He was very religious and built churches after many victories. |
Petru Rareș, who ruled Moldavia from 1527 to 1538 and again from 1541 to 1546, promoted a new vision for Bukovina churches. He commissioned artists to cover the interiors and exteriors with elaborate frescoes (portraits of saints and prophets, scenes from the life of Jesus).
This monastery is one of the eight monasteries in Northern Moldavia with frescoes painted on the outer walls. Sister Maika, who has been living in the monastery for more than 50 years, says that it is "the holy scriptures in color".
Moldovița's frescoes were painted by Toma of Suceava in 1537. They are filled with yellow accents and are well preserved.
4 monasteries in 2 days were enough so we moved on.
Locals on the move.
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| Rural landscape in Sadova. |
Not only the churches are painted.
Locals in Ciocănești.
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| Finally hiking. |
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| In Rodna Mountains. |
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| Rodna Mountains - Munții Rodnei are a subdivision of the Inner Eastern Carpathians in northern Romania. |
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| At 2303 metres, Pietrosul Rodnei is the highest peak in all of the Eastern Carpathians. |
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| Due to the diversity of habitats, the Rodna Mountains National Park has a wide variety of fauna. You can meet deer, wolves, wild boars, lynxes, brown bears and many other animals here. |
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| Our main goal was to visit the waterfall, so we needed to descent down in the valley. |
With its 90 meters, the Horses’ Waterfall (Cascada Cailor) is the highest in Romania.
Its unusual name comes from a local legend with a sad twist. As the story goes, a group of horses jumped into an abyss during a bear attack up on the mountain.
The water originating from snow melting and rains is gathered in a glacial circus and from the almost vertical slope of the Piatra Rea Reservation, it falls down forming the cascade in many steps with successive falls of 40 meters, then 20 meters, and again 40 meters.
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| On our way back I visited one of the nearby caves - Horse's cave. |
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| Such a beautiful scenery, and we have to move on - Garmin Connect. |
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| View from the highest point of the day, cca 1600 m. |
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| Our last stop was the famous Merry Cemetery, a cemetery in the village of Săpânța. |
The cemetery is famous for its brightly coloured tombstones with naïve paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the people who are buried there in addition to scenes from their lives. The Merry Cemetery became an open-air museum and a national tourist attraction. It has been listed as one of the Seven Wonders of Romania by Imperator Travel.
Cimitirul Vesel or Merry Cemetery with over 800 wooden crosses bear the life stories, dirty details, and final moments of the bodies. Displayed in bright, cheery pictures and annotated with limericks are the stories of almost everyone who has died of the town of Săpânţa.
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