Author Archives: Steve Walker

About Steve Walker

Once a tech in-house PR type, now professional photo/videographer and recreational drone pilot. Violinist. Flautist. Occasional conductor. Oenophile.

Preamble: preparing, panicking and packing

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Friday 6 Feb 2025 – Well, we’ve been in the UK now for four whole months! It’s definitely time to be on the move again. We both relaxed easily into a nice comfortable routine at home after our last trip, and there are times when I almost get agitated when considering the upheaval of going away for a period of weeks. This descent into a slough of ease and comfort and stagnation is the first step on a road we don’t want to take. It’s time to shake things up!

To counter the angst of preparation, generally speaking packing for us is a repeatable action, whether we’re going to the equator or the poles – we pack enough for a couple of weeks and pray for decent laundry facilities as we go, merely tailoring the sort of tops we include according to the likely weather.  The outlook for New Zealand is for temperatures in the 20s for the North Island and (hopefully high) teens in the South Island. It’ll almost certainly rain on us at some stage. No particularly specialist gear needed then, as far as clothes are concerned, anyway.

Photographically, I have the usual dilemmas about what to include in my camera bag. I call it a camera bag, but actually photographic equipment seems a minority element, alongside laptop, power banks, WiFi hotspot, backup drive, spare batteries and various other supporting paraphernalia that the well-travelled photo blogger takes with him, and so do I.

The wildlife I might expect to photograph see is in some respects limited compared to other places we’ve visited, in that there are no elusive mammals to seek out. I hope there will be a profusion of bird life and that my photographic skills are up to capturing pictures of a good variety of species. There will likely be whales and seals and dolphins, of course, but unless they get really frisky, I don’t expect these to be that photographically interesting. Who knows, I might even put the camera down and just watch! The Big Lens is clearly going to be a must, but I’m not going to have room for a profusion of other lenses or a tripod; and I’ll take a Small Camera for the sightseeing that doesn’t require a Big Camera. Total weight – 11kg. Please don’t tell the airline.

The destination being New Zealand brings with it some wrinkles before we even get through to the arrivals hall in Auckland. The Powers That Be there are, perhaps unsurprisingly, touchy about what gets brought in case some left-field pathogen escapes and wreaks havoc, so we must be able to prove we have scrubbed our boots so that they are the soles of cleanliness; we must show that our medicines (for one can’t get to our age and mileage without being accompanied by some of them) are legit; and we even have to declare our precious cargo of Twinings finest Earl Grey. Look, I know you can almost certainly buy it over there – they do have shops there, I read about them on the interweb – but there are some chances that are simply not worth taking, OK?

We also have to complete an online declaration of our compliance a maximum of 24 hours before we depart for Auckland. That’ll give us something to do to pass the longueurs of the transit

We have benefited from a slight cock-up on the travel front. The lovely Judy, of Spear Travels, who has done such a marvellous job of pulling together these major trips we’ve been on for the last eight years (eight years! Blimey!), settled on Discover The World to handle the day-to-day details of our itinerary, and a very fine schedule it is, too. But a certain amount of embarrassed shuffling of the feet followed their revelation that they’d missed a booking deadline for our flights, which were originally planned to be on Singapore Airlines, which is a decent operator even if they do shift their deadlines without warning. The practical upshot is that we’re now on Emirates, which I think means we’re slightly ahead on this deal. It’s still 23 hours in the air and arriving, probably sleep-deprived, two days after we set out, whichever aeroplane we’re on.

It’s therefore officially two sleeps before we totter into our hotel in Auckland, but it’ll probably be more like one and a half, given the exigencies of sleeping on a plane.  Still, we’re hoping that we can catch up on some of the films we can’t be bothered to go to see in the UK. According to the Emirates website, we get to choose from “up to 6,500 channels of movies, TV shows, music and games, on demand and in multiple languages”, so, with several hundred movies to choose from, one hopes that boredom is not going to be the main challenge. Even looking through the movie classifications makes me dizzy.

Jane regards any flight which isn’t showing Thor: Ragnarok as a dead loss, so she’ll be quids in. I’ll probably find we’ve arrived before I’ve even finished looking through the choice. Something of a first-world problem; I know I shouldn’t complain.

We will have a couple of days to explore Auckland. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong in the next couple of days, I’ll report back from there.

The two-day journey home

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Tuesday 30 September 2025 – The journey home from near the Ukraine border is not a short one. We discovered that Suceava has an airport, and so I suppose we could have constructed a route home, except (a) WizzAir and (b) Luton Airport. There are some hurdles not worth leaping. Suceava also has a railway station with a direct train to Bucharest, and that was our starting point for a 2-day journey home that was not without its pitfalls, though (spoiler alert) we were only delayed about an hour in our arrival home.

There was basically a choice between two trains, roughly 9am or midday. The journey, though, is nearly seven hours long, and so we opted for the 09:07 train, on the basis that should the Romanian train service cock things up we would at least have a contingency of the later train; and the earlier one would give us a chance to get to Bucharest in late afternoon when we could seek a decent evening meal before overnighting back at the Hotel Minerva.

The lady of the house at Maridor recommended that we start the journey to Suceava at 0730, since it’s about an hour’s drive and it’s no bad thing to have contingency. Privately, I think it also suited her, as it meant that she could drop Vilanel off at school en route.

It continued to be very autumnal as we set out.

We arrived at Suceava station

with about 45 minutes to spare before our train was due.  The inside of the station was not a particularly welcoming environment, with people moodily wiping the floors,

and what seemed like a limited choice of refreshment options.

The departures board showed that our train was on time, and would depart from platform 3, so I thought it might be a good idea to check out the scene and make sure we understood how to get on to the right platform. I managed to find some seats for Jane which were not occupied by deadbeats who had presumably slept the night there, and went out to scout around. At first, it was a bit depressing, as there was actually no indication of which platform was which, although getting from one platform to the next was simple enough – just walk across the track.

The straggly group of people gave me a feeling of which platform we needed to get to; but, more importantly, I discovered that there was a real coffee bar there; a welcome sight.

We got ourselves outside a coffee and bought sandwiches for the journey; there being a mini-mart next door, we got some fruit to accompany them. At the appointed hour, our train turned up

and we took our appointed seats, in first class, of course, dahling.

For me, the journey passed uneventfully – we had cellular coverage for most of it, so I read the papers for pretty much the entire journey. Jane took a more lively interest in what we were passing and some photographs of it: several ghastly communist-era buildings, many of which looked abandoned;

plenty of agriculture;

some modern infrastructure;

and, accompanying us for much of our journey, a massive road development, which will presumably be lovely when it’s finished, and ease the journey between Bucharest and parts north.

It was nearly 4pm when we arrived at Bucharest and everyone streamed off the train

and on to a busy station concourse.

Everything had gone smoothly thus far, and we encountered the first wrinkle in our travel when we tried to get into the metro to get to our hotel. We’d kept our cards from our previous time in the city and they were in theory good for several more metro journeys. Well, Jane’s was; mine, however, had magnetically given up the ghost, so I had to bumble about getting myself another one; hardly an imposition, but not welcome when blundering about with a suitcase in tow.

It was comforting to know that our room in the Hotel Minerva should include something almost more important than a bed and bedding – a kettle and a fridge. En route back, I popped into a Carrefour Express and got some milk, and once we’d checked in,

we could indulge ourselves in a mug of Twinings finest Earl Grey, which was very welcome.

Vlad the lad was on reception at the hotel. I’d been hoping that we might catch him having a crafty cigarette outside the hotel, in which case he would, of course, have been Vlad the Inhaler, but it was not to be.  He booked us a transfer to the airport for the following morning and we headed out to eat. Being creatures of habit, and having enjoyed our meal there before, we headed back to Hanul Manuc.  This was now 5.30 in the afternoon, and there was obviously Something Going On at the St. Anthony Church, as there was a massive queue to get in. It sounded as if a service was being relayed outside the church, so I suppose that’s where people were headed.

Hanul Manuc was exactly as before, except, since it was getting cool as the sun went down, blankets were provided for them as wanted.

There were more cats in attendance on this occasion, too.

We had another good meal there and, importantly, some of their rather nice apricot palinka (fruit liqueur); we’d sampled others up north,  but they were much coarser. Having eaten, we decided that we should seek out a bottle to take home with us, just in case it turned out to be the exception to the rule that local booze never travels well. As we emerged from Hanul Manuc at 7pm, I was astonished to see that the queue for the church had, if anything, got longer.

We found a shop which sold us some of the palinka (about half the price it would have cost in the UK), and peeked in through the netting surrounding Vlad’s castle as we headed back to the metro.

Thus ended the day, and we had to head to bed early, as the alarm was set for 0430 (ugh!), to get us to the airport in time for an 0825 flight.

Wednesday 1 October 2025 – We duly got up and were ready to leave the hotel (with the packed breakfast that they’d created for us). This is the point at which the first unexpected setback happened – our transfer didn’t turn up, which is not the start that we wanted. After fifteen anxious minutes, I got the hotel to order us a cab, which (a) turned up promptly and (b) got us to the airport for about a third of the price of the hotel transfer service.

We went into the terminal building, which is not in terrifically good shape, truth be told,

and stared at the Departures screen

which had a gap against the BA check-in entry. We tried not to worry that we should somehow magically know where to go, and we spent half an hour staring at the screen, willing a check-in area to appear, whilst around our entry all the other flights appeared to be operating OK. I consulted the BA website, which showed that the departure time for our flight was unchanged at 0825 – but the arrival time was listed as being 30 minutes late. We resigned ourselves to standing there until the gods of international flight decided that we could proceed, and eventually our check-in desk number appeared on the screen, so we rushed off, dropped our bags and went through security.

It was a bus ride to the aeroplane, but apart from that the flight proceeded smoothly. We even got free hot water and milk from the cabin staff so we could make our own tea – I happened to have a couple of Twinings finest Earl Grey teabags about my person, you understand. The plane took off a bit late but landed exactly on schedule, so why there had been notice of a delay is a mystery that will never satisfactorily be resolved.

The next wrinkle in the travel came as we got into the arrivals hall at Terminal 3 to find that no taxi was there to pick us up. The driver eventually called me to say that traffic was really bad but he’d be there as soon as he could. So we went and got ourselves a coffee and chatted with a lady who was similarly  awaiting a delayed taxi. Something Was Definitely Afoot – I could see that there was congestion all around the airport. Our driver turned up – having taken over an hour to get from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 – and we discovered what the issue was as he went to pay for his parking. There had been a major fire in the tunnel that leads to the terminal buildings, which is obviously going to cause ructions. To be fair, Heathrow responded by opening all the barriers at the car park, so we didn’t have to pay for parking there.

In the end, we arrived home only about an hour later than we might have expected and it was sweet indeed to be able to put ourselves outside some more of Twinings finest Earl Grey before getting round to the unpacking and laundry.

That was the end of our two-day journey to get home, and we once again reflected on what a great experience the last fortnight had been. Would we recommend it to others? Yes and no, is the answer. The monasteries are absolutely worth travelling to see, assuming you like That Kind Of Thing; but the walking between them was pretty unrewarding. I would recommend rather that people fly to Suceava and rent a car to get around; less healthy exercise, maybe, but more efficient use of time and greater flexibility. However, we’re both profoundly glad that we’ve been able to see the monasteries and experience some rural Romanian culture and hospitality.

Th-th-th-that’s all for now, folks. Once again, these pages will go dark for a few months until our next holiday travels. I hope you’ve subscribed so that you’ll be able to join us when we leave these shores once again. Bye-bye for now.

 

Raining in our expectations

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Monday 29 September 2025 – Today was our last monastery. You’ll probably be glad, having been assailed by multiple images of multiple frescoed walls and ceilings, but stick with me one last time, eh?

The monastery, Voroneț monastery, is about 10km from the Humor monastery, i.e. about 12km from Maridor, where we’re staying. The original idea, as positied in our itinerary, was to be driven over there and to walk back. Given that we awoke to a damp, dismal day, with the prospect of rain for quite a bit of it, this plan didn’t appeal. We agreed with the lady of the house that we would be driven over there and also get a lift back.

After doing battle with a less-than-satisfactory shower which dispensed only less-than-hot water, we had a late breakfast. It was an ample meal, bearing considerable evidence of its rural roots – fried eggs, copious amounts of two sorts of cheese, meatballs, small cocktail-sized sausages, something that Julia the previous evening had described as buttermilk but which was more akin to a thin, somewhat fizzy yoghurt, bread and butter, plum jam and mashed avocado. We managed to get hot water for our tea, so we were well fed up by 10am, when the man of the house came to take us to the monastery. It was raining really quite hard at this point, and, rather engagingly en route, he picked up an elderly chap who was walking to town (a 7km journey) and dropped him off at the pharmacy. Then he took us to the monastery and, to our surprise, told us he’d wait whilst we looked around. This saved us the bother of working out how to get picked up and we were correspondingly grateful.

So: the monastery. It was constructed by Stephen the Great in 1488 over a period of 3 months and 3 weeks to commemorate the victory at Battle of Vaslui. Its walls weren’t painted until 1547, but they obviously did a bang up job, because the monastery has in its time been called the “Sistine Chapel of the East” for its vivid frescoes, which feature an intense shade of blue known in Romania as “Voroneț blue.”

However.

This is what you see as you walk in through the gate.

It’s a sad sight, not too surprising, I suppose. The monastery was deserted soon after 1775, when the Habsburg monarchy annexed the northern part of Moldavia and the monks only returned to Voroneț in 1991. It’s amazing, really, that those frescoes on the other side of the building have survived as well as they have.

The frescoes on the flat wall at the end of the monastery building also have survived well.

The story of the Last Judgement depicted on this wall seems to be similar to that on the narthex at Humor. (Voroneț came first – Ed)

Inside, as usual there was a prohibition on photography, but again, some others were taking  pictures, so I followed suit, as the interior is, like the others, a thing of joy.

For some reason, there was a seismograph installation in the church.

So there it was – our final monastery.

It was still raining as we went outside to be driven back to Maridor. The weather relented occasionally later and enabled Jane to get a couple of non-spattered views across the countryside from our room,

but the weather was too unreliable to risk going out for a walk and disturbing all the neighbourhood dogs, so we spent the rest of the day in sloth, drinking tea and sustaining ourselves with the delicious fudge-like something-or-other that we’d bought at Pasul Palma.

On this trip, we have now visited four of the six or seven painted monasteries of Bucovina which have UNESCO World Heritage status. The frescoed exteriors all date from the 1500s and of course show various levels of deterioration due to the effects of the weather (generally affecting one side more than the others), deficiencies of technique and degree of upkeep. Looking at them in chronological order:

Humor: one of the oldest, it was founded by Prince Petru Rares and painted in 1530. It is known for the rich red pigments but has deteriorated badly on one side.

Moldovița: also founded by Petru Rares and painted in 1532.

Voroneț: built by Stephen the Great in 1488 but not painted until 1547, it was deserted for 200 years between 1774 and 1991and fell into disrepair, hence the considerable deterioration.

Sucevița: founded by the Movilă family and painted in 1581, Sucevița was the last and is considered the finest of them all. Techniques of painting and upkeep had improved over the fifty years since Humor; the monastery was in a sheltered position and was additionally protected by high fortress walls, and as a result it is possible to get an inkling of how spectacular these monasteries must have looked 500 years ago!

We’ve therefore done what we set out to do – a short exploration of the country’s capital, a little hiking in the Carpathian mountains and a visit to probably the best-preserved of the Painted Monasteries. En passant, we’ve also learned a lot of the history of the country, both ancient and modern, seen a variety of its vistas and cultures, enjoyed meeting its people and feel we appreciate the place somewhat more than we did before we first came. We’ve been extraordinarily lucky with the weather, found gin and tonic in most places and didn’t run out of Twinings finest Earl Grey at any point – a most satisfactory set of achievements all round.

All we have to do now is to get home, a process which will take more than one day. The theory goes that we catch a train tomorrow for the six-hour train journey to Bucharest, overnight in Bucharest and finish by taking a ridiculously early flight back to Blighty. Wish us luck.