Thursday 25 September 2025 – Once again, the weather was damp, and colder than yesterday, with temperatures in single figures during a rainy morning. Accordingly, we dedicated the morning to full-time sloth, only emerging into the afternoon when things looked a little less bleak, when we went for a walk. Obviously.
Our objective was another monastery in the vicinity, called Sihăstria Monastery. The attentive among you will have noticed a similarity in name with the hermitage we visited yesterday, Chilia Daniil Sihastrul. All will become clear in good time.
Getting to this monastery involved a walk of some 5km. Our walk took us past MishuCoffee where we again indulged ourselves in a couple of flat whites before heading out of town on a road that took us past the tradesmen’s entrance to the Putna monastery that we’d marvelled at yesterday.
We passed another selection of the attractive cottages one finds here
as we broadly followed the Putna river upstream. We passed a building that in jest I suggested was the local hydro power station and when we got close,
lo and behold, that’s what it was. The Putna river is not, it must be said, in full spate, but there is evidence, in the form of storm drains, that there are times when it’s a powerful flow.
After about 4km, we came to a building which I was sure was the monastery we sought.
I mean, it looks pretty monastic, dontcha think? Google maps swore blind that we had another kilometre to go and, when we drew closer and looked at the other major building on the site,
it became clear that this was a building site, not a monastery. Quite what they’re building we don’t know – there were no signs on view and Google maps remains tight-lipped on the subject. So we walked on, along the road which was now quite muddy in places from all the lorries and other heavy vehicles rumbling along it. We passed a shrine
and then, in the distance, could see our real objective.
See what I mean about the limited flow of the Putna river?
As well as the central monastery building, there were several others to be seen (including a cafe, which came in handy),
including a very cute little churchlet, reminiscent of the stave churches we saw recently in Norway. Initially, I thought it was a modern construction in traditional style, but it is probably older than that – see below.
It was locked, but I managed to get photo of a bit of the interior.
The main buildings of interest on the site, though, were the monastery, of course,
and a neighbouring stone church,
which, like so many places here, had a guard cat on duty.
The stone church is small, but, as is frequently the case in these parts, has a very ornate interior.
Walls and ceilings are covered in devotional images.
supplemented with carved wooden panels.
Aurochs’ Heads, with sun, rose (lower left) and moon, which appear on the Moldavian coat of arms.
There are also beautiful decorative details on the outer walls, including niches with representations of Romanian saints.
Obviously, our main interest was the monastery itself, and, as with the Putna monastery, front porch and narthex
suggested that the interior would be quite something.
I was quite surprised at how light the monastery was inside – others we’d been in had been really gloomy. But this building had windows and, on researching it, this shows that it’s a modern building. A bit of history and terminology follows….
The main building is called the Sihăstria Monastery. “Sihăstria” means “hermitage”, so it’s the Hermitage Monastery. Yesterday’s hermitage was called Chilia Daniil Sihastrul, which I said was Daniil Silhastru’s hermitage. Actually, Daniil Sihastrul means “Danny the hermit” so a better translation would have been “The cell of Danny the hermit”. I hope that clears up that bit of terminology.
The reason for the Sihăstria Monastery name is because the building is on the site of what was a hermitage in the mid-15th century, with several cells occupied by hermits who wanted even more silence than a monastic life afforded, and a small wooden church. The site’s popularity led to the building of the stone church in 1758 (with the wooden church being moved to the “apple orchard” – this could well be the one pictured further above). The timing was unfortunate as the site fell into disrepair under Austro-Hungarian rule (1775 onwards); the church was closed and the site was deserted for some 200 years. In the 1990s, the hegumen of the Putna monastery began to restore the area and found the tombstones of the area’s original founding fathers, and so restored, redecorated and reconsecrated the stone church. This attracted more monks and the church became too small. So, in the early 2000s, the monastery building we see today was erected. That’s why it’s so light inside – it was built in the Windows era. Thank you. Thank you for reading my joke.
The stone church is reportedly built of “river stone”, presumably the stone which created the remarkable formations we saw by the river on our walk.
It’s clear that the area is being developed. As well as the not-really-a-monastery building we saw earlier, there was a lot of heavy construction traffic along the road, and evidence of heavy work on the verges.
On the walk back to the hotel, we saw a couple of slices of northern Romanian life: a traditional horse and cart;
and a dock fight,
a combination of a dog and cock fight, as farmyard animals noisily settled a dispute. We also passed an enigmatic building,
the “Panzer Club”, which looks like it was once a place of ill-repute but which now simply looks disused. We stopped by at the mini-mart in the village petrol station and, having drunk the hotel dry of tonic, bought some so that we could indulge ourselves in G&Ts with dinner.
We’ve had a pleasant time in Putna. We’ve been able to relax a bit but still managed to absorb a lot of the culture and history of the area as well as learning something of its Orthodox religious background. And this despite some less-than-optimal weather. However, the weather is once again on the turn. Although summer has, I fear gone for this year, at least the sun is forecast to make a reappearance tomorrow, which is good, since we have an 18km walk tomorrow, involving a rather abrupt and steep lump in the middle. Today we ambled about 12km, which was at least some practice at getting ourselves back into the hiking mindset. Let’s see if we can complete tomorrow’s walk without whinging, eh?
who led us through five kilometres of huge architectural variation and 20 centuries of turbulent history. When explaining how the country of Romania and the city of Bucharest have developed, his explanations almost always started, “It’s complicated….”. Frankly, given the history, I’m not bloody surprised.
which are being developed as a museum. The restaurant itself used to be a caravanserai, a place where merchants would come and stay to do business, for days or even months, before moving on. The caravanserai occupied what is now the courtyard that we ate in. Interestingly, the paving leading into it
is not stone, but wood.
Apparently, much of Bucharest was once paved with wood, although not of this high quality.The route of our tour led us through the Old Town, some of which remains, but much of which was demolished in the communist era.
Some buildings have a distinctive red disc on them
which means that they are at risk of falling down if there’s another earthquake (there was a big one in 1977 which destroyed a lot of Bucharest, but not as much as the communists did, apparently).Many of these fine buildings are really quite dilapidated, Horia suggested that this is a combination of neglect under the communist regime (if they didn’t actively tear them down) and current private ownership which has neither the funds nor the will to pay for the upkeep.That said, there are many quirky corners of the old town.
and its streets are thickly populated with bars and restaurants.
There is so much to the old town that I can’t possibly do it justice without you drowning in photos, but it’s a great place to walk around, with a lively vibe – and plenty of crowds.The other thing there are a lot of is churches; Romania is a very religious country, as we saw in the devoted obeisances paid by people in the churches we visited. Some were in the old town, some outside that area. A big attraction for tourists and locals alike in the old town is the church of the “Stavropoleos” Monastery, which is beautifully decorated outside
and in.
Of course, the communist era ranked very highly in Horia’s itinerary. We visited Revolution Square, site of what was the Romanian Communist Party Central Committee building (now the Ministry of the Interior)
where one can see the balcony from which Ceausescu gave his final speech before realising that there was going to be an uprising which would unseat him.
I remember seeing the news coverage of that speech, and the look of panic on his face as he realised that he’d lost control of the people and that the peasants really were revolting.We passed the Palace Hall, a 1960s communist era building
which now bears the scars of the revolution that unseated Ceausescu in the form of bullet holes.
It’s not the only building with bullet holes scarring it – there are others, reflecting the desperate efforts of Ceausescu to retain power by ordering his troops to gun down the rebels, which only delayed his unseating by one day – but it was a very bloody day.Our tour ended at the parliament building, which is simply immense – the heaviest building in the world and largest apart from the Pentagon, apparently.
It was started in 1984, in the Ceausescu era and by the time he was deposed it was 70% finished and by then more costly to destroy than to finish. Accordingly, it was finished in 1997, and now has some 4,000 rooms in it. As well as serving as police, military and secret service headquarters, it apparently pays its way through tours, exhibitions and other events, but consumes a significant portion of the city’s electricity if all the lights are on.Other churches we visited included the Cathedral of the Patriarchy, which is south of the old town and is a striking building with a beautiful courtyard beside it.
Inside is, like the others we visited, elaborately decorated.
another building which is beautifully appointed outside and in.
