Day 23 - Wednesday 17th June

We had a reasonable night's sleep. There weren't too many rural noises to wake us up. Sleeping in a single bed with a single doona and no top sheet is still a challenge. People in this part of the world are obviously used to it. Initially we'd left open the door to the balcony to let some air into the room and to cool it down but Suzy closed it during the night because it was getting too cool.

Breakfast at the Casa Humor Hotel starts at 8am and we got there promptly at that time. As suggested last night by the receptionist, we brought down three bags of washing so she could send it away to be done by this evening. We were surprised that they didn't turn on the lights in the restaurant and so we sat a table near the window.

Alex arrived soon after. We once again insisted that he borrows a jumper from me to avoid freezing like he did yesterday. I also asked him if he could help me with recharging the SIM for my mini WiFi because the Orange site is only in Romanian with no English option.

At 8:45 Alex came to our room as arranged at breakfast. He managed to add credit to my Orange account but he didn't find the site at all intuitive. No wonder I had so much trouble figuring it out.

A couple of days ago, I'd been wondering why I brought three jumpers in my luggage. Although we had some cold weather earlier in the holiday, I hadn't needed all of them. But it's just as well I did because Alex certainly needed something to keep him warm and to stop him getting a cold. He opted to use my fleece with a zip front. It was fairly loose on me and it fitted him quite well.

With these delays, it was about 9:20 before we got away. Although they were forecasting 80% chance of rain, there were only a few very light showers. We were wearing jumpers and we took spray jackets with us in the car.

Today we would be visiting four painted monasteries and an egg-painting museum - all within driving distance of our hotel.

The first monastery was Voronet which dates back to the 15th century. It is close to the town of Humorului where we are staying. As with other churches in this region, it has frescos (paintings) on the outside of the church as well as inside. They depict religious events in the Christian world. It was built by Stefan the Great. The theme colour of the frescoes is blue.

Alex had told us us he would spend some time explaining the frescoes in this church because it would give us the background to the other churches.In particular he showed us the images on one side of the church that had various levels of painting showing the holy trinity, heaven, hell, the apostles, etc.

As he was explaining it all, I started to wish that I'd worn my spray jacket rather just a light jumper because the rain had started to increase from just a light shower. Suzy was well rugged up but said she wished she had brought her gloves with her.

As often is the case, there was a "photo tax" for taking photos outside the church and it was forbidden to take photo inside. There were a couple of other tour groups there including a German group.

Alex had intended to take us to a nearby coffee shop but found it was closed and so he drove us to another one further down the road. It was part of another guest house (pension) with elegant decor in the restaurant. The lady there spent a lot of time talking to Alex in Romanian trying to convince him to bring more tour groups to her guest house.

Suzy had wanted to post some postcards she'd bought and Alex managed to find a post office in Solca, one of the towns we were passing through, so she could buy some stamps.

He then took us to a workshop that made black pottery. We were able to see men working with the clay and then sitting at a spinning wheel to make pottery with their hands.

The next stop  was the monastery at Sucevita. Along the way, the rain was getting steadier. I was trying to take photos of the scenery and the horses and carts but this was becoming difficult because of the rain on the windscreen.

This monastery was built in the 16th century and is famous because of the depiction of the 31 steps to heaven.

Next we headed to the town of Moldovita. Along the way we stopped at a lookout with a beautiful view of the countryside below, At the top of the hill, there is monument in the shape of a hand that commemorates the political prisoners who were forced to build this road in the communist era. The temperature up here was only 9C.

At Moldovita, we stopped for lunch at the egg-painting museum. This is a small business that is owned and operated by a middle-aged couple. After thoroughly wiping our shoes at the entry, we were invited into their dining room for a delicious lunch.

We felt as though we could have been at home in Sydney enjoying a home-cooked meal. They had a timber dining room table with timber sideboards decorated with fascinating ornaments. The lady of the house, Lucia Condrea, had cooked an excellent lunch starting with meatball soup, followed by barbecue pork with salad and potatoes.

They offered us two varieties of brandy and then red wine. The finale was a delightful cake for dessert. We felt as though we were right at home except everyone else was speaking Romanian. It was the best meal that we'd had in Romania.

After lunch we got a guided tour of the egg-painting museum with the husband conducting the tour in Romanian and with Alex translating for us. Except that the man was very talkative and Alex had trouble explaining what he'd said before he moved on. Apparently he is a teacher.

I wasn't allowed to take photos in the museum except when he was demonstrating how the eggs are painted.

Lucia is the artist who paints the eggs. She is clearly a genius. Previously when I thought of egg painting, I'd envisaged simple designs. The artwork on her eggs is incredibly detailed and intricate. Many of the eggs are painted with religious themes and icons. Everything is beautifully coloured, artistic and symmetrical. They are genuine works or art. It must have taken her ages to do each egg.

Although there are some chicken eggs, most of them are duck eggs because the duck egg shell is stronger. There are some larger eggs from pelicans too.

At the end of his presentation, he offered a small selection for sale. Suzy had originally intended to buy some but decided they were too expensive and too much of a risk considering we don't know how we'll go getting them through customs in Sydney.

Next Alex took us to a nearby monastery. Again I paid the photo tax that let me take photos outside but not inside the church.

Alex then drove us back to Humorului to a monastery a few kilometres from our hotel. He took a different route to get there explaining that we'd travelling around the area in a circle. He couldn't talk inside because a nun was conducting a service. Across the road from the monastery, there was a series of colourfully painted houses.

Back in our hotel, I heard the mooing of cows and went out on the balcony to see two noisy cows in the paddock next to the hotel. Thankfully my washing had been done and so I had clothes to wear for the next week.

As we went down to the hotel restaurant at 8pm for dinner, it seemed as though the weather was clearing up. When we walked in, we saw Alex having dinner with Florin, the other tour guide we'd seen a couple of nights ago.

At an adjacent table, Suzy thought she detected an Australian accent. They turned out to be a couple from Melbourne who are also doing a tour with a driver guide. They had previously been to Georgia and Bulgaria.

Alex came over later and told us another joke.