Tag Archives: Countryside

Sense of Humor failure

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Sunday 28 September 2025 – It was a strangely cold morning. The actual temperature wasn’t as low as it had been the day before, when there was frost on the grass and ice making the painted wooden steps to our bedroom somewhat perilous; but it felt colder, and Madame had a wood burner going in the dining area,

which Roşie (Ginger) appreciated rather more than guard duties. The skies were cloudy, and the sun even peeped through from time to time during the day; but we wore jackets for the day’s hike.

The objective for the day was to visit – you guessed it – another monastery, Mănăstirea Humorului. So, Humor Monastery with a bit of Romanian post-appending of definite articles and so forth – officially a 17km walk. Our information had us starting from a town called Solca, some 20 minutes’ drive away and once again Gabriel was our chauffeur and Daniela his lookout because the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car. They actually dropped us some way beyond Solca towards our destination, thus saving us about 4km of walking along a tarmac road. We were able to start off on a dirt road, which made for a more pleasant walking environment,

at least for the stretch which led to tarmac.

After that, we were on tarmac roads, mainly without sidewalks, for the rest of the walk. To start with, we headed downhill, past a handsome (Catholic) church

and through a village with some idiosyncracies in the housing decor.

Gnomes were a popular decoration

I knew, from the GPS track we’d been provided with, that the route was up and down, with a fairly substantial up in the middle, but hoped that the gentler gradient on offer wouldn’t be too irksome.

Faint hope.

The gradient wasn’t very steep, but there was a 3km stretch where we had to climb 250 metres, which was a relentless and dull trudge. Round every bend, just when you thought “is this the top?”, the uphill road seemed to stretch eternally onwards. However, these things must pass if one simply keeps plodding on, and eventually we got to a point where neither geology or physics could maintain the uphill grind,

at a village called Plesa. It was certainly a plesa to stop and admire the view

and the prospect of sitting down for a bit of a rest. Before Jane allowed us that, though, she had found Something Of Interest for us to investigate, so we headed off down a rough track, which passed a chapel, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Just past the chapel, on the left, was a prominent rocky outcrop, topped by  a cross.

The ladder there should give you the clue that not all was as it seems; this set of rocks was the basis for a set of artworks sculpted into the stone. They’re not immediately obvious – someone casually walking along the track might well have missed them.

However, courtesy of Jane’s research, we were In The Know, and so we spent some time investigating. Here’s the close up of the shot above, in which the sculptures are much clearer,

and clambering carefully around revealed several more.

Once back on the road we treated ourselves to a few minutes’ rest and a bite to eat before continuing our walk. We went through a couple of reasonably sizeable villages.  One, Solonețu Nou, distinguished itself in two ways: an attractive architectural vernacular for the well housings;

and probably the noisiest selection of house dogs we’d yet experienced in this country.

To our British eyes, the Romanian habit of cooping up their dogs seems harsh; there are quite a few small enclosures with large dogs in them, with barely room to turn round, far less to get exercise. Many dogs are free in gardens, and we even found a handful in the road, who were noisy but didn’t do anything more than bark. I suppose that these are simply guard dogs, there to alert people to intruders, though I don’t know whether these would be human or animal; and in any case there seemed to be no-one home to be alerted (possibly in itself a reason for the dogs to be agitated). We only ever saw a dog being taken out and exercised a couple of times when we were here. Definitely Cultural Dissonance at work, in more ways than one.

We trudged on. Occasionally the view was good,

and the houses we passed engaging,

(this is a sculptor’s house and atelier – we wonder if he has something to do with the stone sculptures); but it was dull work and there was a reasonable amount of traffic to dodge. Eventually, though, we came to the turn off which led to our accommodation, which was called Maridor.  The track to it led us through some kind of logging operation

out a kilometre or so to a small group of houses;

ours was the big yellow one.

It was open, but deserted, except for a young teenage lad who spoke enough English to show us our room and tell us that dinner would be available at 7pm, but who otherwise seemed (a) not to know any further details and (b) not to be very comfortable in his role. No matter; despite the walk only having been about 13km, I was very tired and in need of rest, so we took it easy for a bit before going for a walk. Obviously.

Humor Monastery was a good 2km away, and the exact way in was not obvious. There was a car park (with several coaches in it), surrounded by the usual keen-eyed entrpreneurial locals

but we eventually found out where we could buy tickets, and we followed the crowds in.

To a building site, sadly; most of the area was fenced off.

Actually, we were sort of lucky – pictures online from a few days earlier showed it covered in scaffolding (it looks as though they had been replacing the roof, judging from its light colour) so at least we were spared that, and could get some idea of the frescoes on the outside.

As with the Moldovița monastery, the frescoes on the windward side had faded sadly

but the external narthex ceiling was still in good shape

as were the frescoes on the entrance wall of the church.

Jane was particularly taken by the elephant

which we think is shown as part of the Noah’s Ark story.

Inside the church there was the usual prohibition against photography, but since people were flagrantly ignoring this and the nuns appeared not to mind, I took a few photos of the interior, which, like them all, is spectacular.

Having seen the monastery, we felt that an ice cream would be Just The Thing, so headed back to the kiosk in the retail-heavy car park, only to find it was closed. Well, Sunday, innit? So we decided to investigate the neighbouring church, which looked very impressive

but was closed. Well, Sunday, innit?

So we started the trudge back to Maridor. We passed some interesting railings outside one place, with representations of the signs of the zodiac;

and, just by our turn off into the boondocks there was a shop which appeared to be open. So we went in. The lady in charge didn’t seem too pleased to see us, but we sorted ourselves out with a couple of bananas, and an ice cream each and paid. As we left the shop, she locked up behind us and drove off! We were lucky to get there in the nick of time, which made up for the earlier ice cream disappointment and went some way to dispelling the sadness at the state of the monastery site; it was such a shame to see it so faded, and slightly irritating to have access so limited. We didn’t get a real sense of what the monastery really looked like (hence the title of this page).

Back at Mirador, all was quiet, and we were actually wondering whether we really would get a dinner. But we did. At 6.55, I went out and the only sign of life was the lad, whose name is Vilanel (he’s just socially awkward, not a psychopathic killer in search of Eve); he assured me that there would be dinner at 7, so we went down and joined Julia and Heather, the ladies we’d met at Casa Felicia, and who were basically a day ahead of us on the Natural Adventure itinerary. It was nice to chat to them again and it gave us a chance to find out some useful information, such as getting to and from the final monastery of this trip and also getting to the train back to Bucharest. Vilanel had been very helpful for them organising taxis and telling them what they needed to know. His parents, who run Maridor, didn’t have much English, but Vilanel’s was good – learned, apparently, more from social media than from school.

So, after a very tasty dinner, we established what would happen on the morrow for our monastery visit and also what the schedule would be for the next day. The weather prospects were dismal, which meant we decided on a variation to the suggested itinerary. Exactly what that was, you will be able to find out by coming back to these pages.

Zărnești to Putna – getting to the start of Phase III

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Tuesday 23 September 2025 – The start of the third and final phase of this trip was reached via a long car journey, as we had to travel 400km to the northernmost reaches of Romania. The delightful but incomprehensible Ioana had set up our breakfast for us prompt at 8am and so we had our various egg orders there for us, amid quite a spectacular spread, including little sausages, slices of bigger sausages, ham, various cheeses, tomatoes, cucumber, chicken goujons and some croquettes of some description. There was also bread and jam, so we were able to construct ourselves toast and tea to go with the eggs, and we left the rest of the spread substantially untouched. The lounge area is a nice place to breakfast in, anyway.

Prompt at 9, our driver arrived to whisk us away. He could speak English, but largely chose not to, instead concentrating on getting us to Putna, our destination, as efficiently as he could, allowing for three stops for breaks on the way. The stops were all at petrol stations, and I noticed with a little amusement the slightly old-fashioned nature of these places. They still offered squeegees at the pumps to clean the windscreens,

and the shops offered things that no self-respecting British service station offers any more:

stuff that motorists might actually need, like oil and windscreen wipers. One of the service stations had a guard cat.

On the way over, I contented myself with reading the papers (and dozing – Ed), and Jane tried to capture photos of the passing landscape – not easy when you’re whizzing past it at 80kph.

To start with, the scenery was distinctly agricultural,

as we were crossing a large (and, as you can see, very flat) plain. Corn or maize was a major crop, as were sunflowers, which, having flowered, were patiently lined up in the fields awaiting their doom.

Another major crop was potatoes, as evidenced by this not untypical lorry load.

There were also churches, of course,

various roadside decorations

and many interesting buildings, which were of course, vanishing into the distance behind as soon as one realised that there might have been a photo there if we’d been able to stop. Jane did register that several roofs featured the same sort of wooden tiling that had adorned the barn we’d seen as we left Măgura.

The towns featured, as one might expect, some unattractive communist-era apartment blocks, but Jane particularly noted that the rural villages appeared to have escaped unscathed; there were lots of buildings of wood or brick, which (while in some cases in need of renovation) displayed wonderful architectural details and ornamentation – including crosses on every possible high point – which we imagine might have characterised pre-communist Romania.

One signpost we passed outlined why we were headed on this long journey.

Keep reading. All will become clear in good time.

We got to Putna, which, incidentally, is less than 10km away from the border with Ukraine, at around 4.30pm and checked into our accommodation, the Pensiunea Mușatinii.

With time to kill before dinner, we decided we’d go for a walk. Obviously. The nice man on reception applauded this move on the basis that today’s nice summer weather was emphatically going to end tomorrow. So, off we went, with the main objective being, of course, to visit what Putna is best known for whilst the sun was shining,

En route, we passed the village’s very handsome church

and some attractive houses.

We puzzled a little as to what the thing was outside the house above – Jane had noted several of them in the towns and villages that we’d passed through. We walked by another one

and closer examination showed that it was a well.

Soon, we reached the gateway to Putnas’s main attraction:

and indeed its rather handsome portal.

In we went, and were greeted by this magnificent building.

This is the church part of Putna’s monastery. The monastery premises house this and several other photogenic corners.

The monastery was founded by Stephen the Great in 1466 and consecrated in 1470 as one of the first and most important monastic establishments of his reign. It houses Stephen’s own tomb along with those of his family and other Moldavian rulers. Over the centuries the monastery has suffered damage from fires, earthquakes and invasions, but it has been repeatedly rebuilt and strengthened, preserving its role as a stronghold of Orthodox faith and Moldavian culture. It’s one of several monasteries for which this area is well-known, among monastery buffs at least, and our plan over the coming days is to visit a few more, each of which has its own story to tell.

We wanted to get a brief look at the monastery while the weather was decent, hence the swift visit today. We got back to the hotel in the nick of time to get dinner before a coachload of bloody tourists arrived to cause utter bedlam.

Tomorrow, as the weather propects are uncertain, we plan to look inside the monastery’s church and museum. We may also get to see some of the other significant buildings around here. You’ll have to come back and find out.

Day 16 – Viterbo to Vetralla – just this (hot) day, really

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Friday 30 May 2025 – The destination for today was Vetralla, which could be reached by one of two routes. We opted for the shorter one, around 17km, but still would have liked to make an early start; however Renato only offered breakfast starting at 8am. It was billed in our travel information as an “Italian breakfast”, and we were mildly curious to find out what this meant. Beyond yoghurt, what it meant was

a sweet breakfast (i.e. one offering no savoury options). We stocked our bodies with loads of unhealthy, sugar-based calories and set off at around 8.15 into a day that was already reasonably warm and which was forecast to get hot – around 28°C, if the local weather app is to be believed.

We started on a very appropriate road

which led us once again to the Piazza San Lorenzo, giving me a chance to take a photo of the Duomo in the morning sunshine.

We had read that Viterbo was a walled city and that much of the wall still survived, and this became clear as we walked out of the city,

though the restoration work they’re doing on the walls meant we had to find a way around one blockage.

The route led along an “excavated highway”

which was a tarmac road, but the high rock walls around it made it pleasantly shady. We passed a cave which might possibly once have been an Etruscan catacomb

but we weren’t about to scramble around to get in and have a closer look. The walls on either side became cliffs,

which made it vitally important to establish if there was oncoming traffic on some of the bends. Not that that seemed to worry a group of several dozen cyclists who passed us.

On that particular bend was a shrine, but it was so decayed that it wasn’t really possible to see what it once looked like; it was the first of three roadside shrines we passed on the day’s walk.

We were not the only pilgrims on the road. Going the same way as us, we passed an American lady, Melissa, who had started her journey in Montefiascone, and so I suppose was the first person we’d met who had the 100km target in their sights.  A couple of pilgrims passed us going in the opposite direction –

we did wonder how the first pilgrim’s cart might work out on some of the rockier surfaces – but that was it for the pilgrim presence on today’s walk. Given that pilgrim numbers are so sparse, at least at this time of year, I guess it’s no surprise that rest stops haven’t sprung up to service passing trade. Jane and I agreed that while theoretically the objective of the exercise is the walk, in practice the lack of rest stops, which as well as being refreshing can be a good catalyst for cameraderie among walkers, means that the walks had become simply a way to get from A to B, rather than the walking being a source of pleasure in itself. Once we’d left the shade of the excavated highway, much of the rest of the walk was simply trudging along various sorts of road or path, in varying amounts (sometimes including a total lack) of shade.

Still, a few things leavened the experience of the day. We passed a signpost to a thermal pool

which tempted us to go about a kilometre out of our way. In theory, this was in order to get a timbro; honesty compels me to admit that the pools’ entry on Google Maps had the magic word “bar” by them, so, full of hope, we set off to find

a car park full of cars, and a queue to get in. We would have had to buy tickets to get our timbro or our coffee, and the queue was glacial in progress, so we cut our losses and worked our way back to the trail.

The landscape is rural and agreeable, but very flat and rather unvarying.

We passed various plantations – hazel nuts, olives and grapevines; sometimes all three at once.

There was a picnic table set up in the shade just over the half-way mark

so we had a break and shared a banana (we know how to have a good time – Ed). Like rest days, rest stops are necessary, but it can be difficult to get rolling again afterwards. The track was occasionally grassy

and at one point became suddenly, unexpectedly and severely steep,

but we made it cursing internally (Jane) and audibly (me) and carried on, past more plantations

and a donkey.

Samsung Gallery’s AI search identifies this as an Amiatina donkey, which is a breed found mainly in Tuscany. This is a credible assertion on its part. But it may have been a mule for all we knew.

Amidst all the trudging there was another diversion, which showed promise.

This was only 100 metres out of our way (albeit uphill, of course), and this time it delivered on the promise.

We walked in and were welcomed by a nice lady who pointed us at a delightful shaded veranda and gave us beer, crisps and a timbro, for whatever we cared to contribute.

That was the best €10 of the day so far. Refreshed, we carried on into Vetralla, which is a funny old place. On the way in is an “open air country museum”, which featured, in three openings along the road, various typical characteristics of the area.

Hospitality

Viticulture
Vegetable cultivation

We were greeted by the town muriel as we walked in

and we worked our way up to our hotel, the Albergo da Bernadetta,

which, though open, featured an unattended reception and an American gentleman guest who said that the lady was there earlier but had said something about 3pm. It being 2pm at this point, we decided that we should try to find some lunch. I had noted that there was a Restaurant da Bernadetta just down the road, which Google asserted was open until 3pm. So we hightailed it down the road and found the place

and were welcomed in for a nice lunch, with very affable service and good food. No gin, though. Sigh. The American gentleman turned up shortly after us, with (we assume) his daughter (not that we earwigged their conversation, of course; but the tone of some of the exchanges were definitely the sort that one might expect between daughter and father). Jane and Caroline had seen them together in Monteriggioni and had speculated about them then – that is now two weeks ago; they were also spotted at breakfast in Montefiascone, so we can make a guess that they are on a similar journey to ours.

The linked names of hotel and restaurant are because they are owned by siblings; the chap running the kitchen in the restaurant told us that it was he who had delivered our bags to the hotel earlier that day. We headed back up the hill to the hotel, checked in and rested for a while, which gave me the opportunity to investigate my socks.  I walk in sandals and socks. I know, I know. But that combination saw me through 800km of the Camino Francés, so I’m sticking with what works. Quite a lot of today’s path work was along grassy paths, and I had quite a bit of agricultural material to get out of them.

Having rested and made a cup of Twining’s finest Earl Grey, we ventured out to explore Vetralla which, as I say, is a funny old place. Our hotel was over the road from the old town, and so we got a decent view of it as we headed towards it.

The old town has, relative to its small size, an extremely long main drag, which, as in the other cities in the area, is made gloomy by the use of dark stone in the buildings.

but there are some attractive corners

and some quirks, too.

It bills itself as the “città incantata“,

which I thought meant the “unsung city”, which seemed about right.  Actually, I now learn that it translates as the “enchanted city”, which, frankly, is a bit of a reach. We couldn’t even find a bar which looked like it might serve us a gin, so “enchanted” is not quite the word, for us. There is some evidence that there are a lot of empty houses along the main street

and the city appears to have embraced the Spanish definition of “Open”.

That gate was into the park by the Rocca, which is one of the substantial buildings in the old town.

Another is the Duomo

which really was open, so we went in.

In stark contrast to its dour exterior, the interior was light and airy, with some delightful trompe l’oeuil work in side chapels and on some of the walls

and on ceilings.

Sadly, there was no opportunity to light a candle for Martin. There’s another church, to San Francesco, but it was closed. Part of it appears to be a hostel for pilgrims

and Jane discovered a cloister courtyard which featured some modern fresco work.

We worked our way back along the main street, where I saw this signpost for the Via, pointing back the way we came.

I can understand why they highlight Viterbo; it’s a city of great pith and moment. But Centeno? Really? That was the place with the closed pizzeria where we helped Jane and Yvette. It has nothing whatsoever to recommend it, in my view, so to see it signposted is a mystery to me.

Having exhausted the sightseeing possibilities of Vetralla, then, we returned to the hotel to gather our strength for the morrow, when we have to get to Capranica. If we were being hard core, we should have undertaken the walk to Sutri, which is the “official” leg, but Walk The Camino, who set our itinerary up, took pity on a couple of oldies and split the leg into a thigh to Capranica, and, the following day, a shin, to Sutri. So we have about 16km to cover, in (we hope) a gentle ascent followed by a gentle descent, without, as usual, any rest stops along the way. The temperature is due to hit 30°C so we’re hoping to get out early to avoid the worst of the heat. Stay tuned to see whether we were successful or not.