Throughout Italy you’ll find almost all central town squares dominated by a church. Not Siena: its enchanting Piazza del Campo is presided over by Palazzo Publico, aka City Hall. Inside Palazzo Publico is another delightful surprise: secular frescoes. Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted The Allegory of Good and Bad Government frescoes inside the council chamber of Palazzo […]
An important (and overlooked aspect) of itinerary planning is where to spend your jet lag day. You know, that time when you’ve crammed yourself into at least two flights, failed to sleep, eaten airplane dinners with weird meat and dubious gravy, gone way too long without showering or brushing your teeth and then—hooray!—all that’s over, […]
Listen up people: the stunning Voroneţ Monastery was built in only three months and three weeks in the year of 1488. And if that wasn’t remarkable enough, it’s colorful exterior frescoes are magically well-preserved. This is a world famous UNESCO World Heritage Site and you absolutely should not visit while wearing a tube top and jeans shorts. SHOW SOME […]
They call it Pálinka, horinca, or brandy. I call it moonshine. Whatever you call it, people are making it all over Maramureș. Here’s how to find the hooch: first walk around until you smell wood smoke. Follow the smell to a house with a smoking chimney. Are there buckets of fermenting apples near the house’s […]
So I have this thing about sacred art and architecture. And in all my travels to see religious art in situ, I’ve never experienced sacred spaces as unique as the wooden Churches of Maramureş in Northern Transylvania. During 1000 or so years Hungarians ruled Maramureş, they forbid the Orthodox Romanians from building churches in stone. As a delightful result, a distinct style of […]
As a rabid fan of medieval hill towns, I was eagerly anticipating Sighișoara, whose 14th century citadel and historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sighișoara is pretty, with pastel-colored houses all nestled inside a ring of towers. But mostly, Sighișoara is a Dracula kitsch-encrusted tourist trap. Some Goth 23 year old graphic designer probably invented the Dracula font. Vlad is […]
After a six hour car ride (with several stops to enjoy marvelous views of the Rodna mountains) we pulled up to the entry of the Moldovița Monastery and hurried inside the gate. As we had limited time, HOB and planned to focus on the monastery’s masterpiece: the fresco of The Siege of Constantinople. A few […]
Before I went to Romania several people warned me it might be dangerous, that I should look out. Oh man were they right–why just the other morning a calf escaped and took off down the dirt road with his new wobbly legs splayed all about with dad and granny chasing after him. I mean, who […]
Traditional culture is thriving in Maramureș, to the point where it felt at times as if we had slipped back a few centuries. The culture is alive, though, not some kind of faux-bucolic Marie Antoinette village. Villagers driving horses on wooden carts and working the land entirely without machines use cell phones. Grampa may not […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 