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La Moraña

Landscape is not unique, not even in the same province. This part of Ávila, where cereals are grown, where water supply is always scarce, where yellow is the colour, also encloses beautiful corners. Not far away from the town, Zorita is an example.

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The other journeys

Being a keeper turns cleaning into a sentimental and philosophical journey. Drawers and books are huge reservoirs of memories and stories. It's never difficult to get small pieces of history from trips. It only takes a second to see and take the booklet, the visit card, the entrance tickets.
Once you have unpacked, these silent companions stay wrapped until you come across them.
This very moment is the beginning of a new journey into food, landscapes, currency. People that were by your side come again to your sight and their voices enter you like a gift. Every sense perceives an invitation to travel again.
It feels good to stop for second, collect those old stripes of time and be with the same people again.

Neglect

As I have mentioned, Constantza has a beautiful old center area that unfortunately is in a bad state of neglect. I hesitated to go deeper into this topic, because it's not pleasant, but this example impressed me too much to keep it for myself.
It's called "Casa cu lei" (The House with Lions), and it's an imposing edifice built in 1897, in the Italian Renaissance style. It belonged to an Armenian lumber merchant and then to a judge who had an impressive art collection. This collection attracted a curious young Armenian boy who used to peep though the windows and admire the objects and one day, after conspiring with the maid, was able to enter and take a closer look. The boy would become our biggest art collector, Krikor Zambaccian. The house sheltered less innocent love stories, as later it became a famous restaurant and a lovers' meeting point.
The reason for its pitiful state is a common one: after the revolution, it was the object of a legal dispute, as the former owners' heirs claimed it. It was abandoned and robbed, and the luxurious furniture inside was stolen and probably used for heating.
The first two photos are mine, the third is from Wikipedia and the one of the dying apple-tree, eaten alive by caterpillars despite his branches heavy with fruit is just a sad symbol of neglect.

Postcards

Unlike other years, I have absolutely no apetite for work and for going back to school. Maybe I'm worried of what I will find in the new school, maybe I'm still tired, maybe I'm just lazy. Anyway, I am trying to keep the last holidays moments hold still, cling to every summer memory. Therfore, here are a few more seaside postcards.

Event

It's a big fuss on the media today because of Madonna's concert tomorrow. It will take place across from the House of People, in the parc you were crossing in order to go from the hotel to the subway. Huge preparations have been made. I won't see it, as I'm not one of her fans, and besides it will be very crowded and the tickets were very expensive. But in a way I think it's a good thing she's coming, a nice thing to have really big names here now and then, for a change. Usually, we see less famous people, those who are not the craze of the moment. Having her perform here makes us feel we are "on the map". Unless she'll say as two other stars have said before: "Hello, Budapest!" :))

Changing

Peacefully, without great announcement, on tip toe summer time is leaving us this year. After weeks of scorching heat, burning winds, fires and dry air shy clouds have started to appear .
They are like a blessing signal, no rain yet. Just a lower temperature.
Willing to welcome the change, we breathe deeply, feeling a contradiction. A goodbye to holidays and a relief for the cooler nights.

Opinci

This is how I imagine the free Dacians in the North of the country, the ones that remained unconquered by the Romans.
He was just making a wooden spoon at a traditional crafts fair in Mamaia and he really came from the North. Look at his costume (he had a beautiful embroidered shirt the next day, because it was a Sunday). He was wearing (and he also made) the oldest kind of footwear here, called "opinci" (ci is to be pronounced chi). They were made of a rectangular piece of thick leather, worn with woolen wraps or woolen socks, and tied to the feet using narrow strips of leather or strings made of goats or horsetail hair.
It's just as the Dacians on the column in Rome look. And as we looked at his clothes, his spoons, his works, we felt something I cannot name, a warm feeling for the past and the people of this place.

Entering Ávila from Madrid

Although first impressions are sometimes disappointing, they may also help us to come into contact with a reality. This is the case for the ways we use to enter a place. It was usually the train and what one could see from the rails was the suburbs, the poorest housing in the towns. Something similar happens with the roads. Nevertheless, today's expanding towns offer us a better view.
Coming into Ávila from Madrid the avenue is broad, clear, straight and artistic. There are several sculptures made of iron which, in a certain way, cut the monotony and provide us with elements to understand we are entering somewhere with art.

We may not like the iron works, but they all have a meaning

August 23rd

August 23rd 1944 is the day of the coup d'etat against the pro-Nazi political group, the coup that led to our army joining the Allies. The consequences were important, some even claim it shortened WWII by as much as 6 months, but not so happy for our country.
As history is nothing but an instrument for the ones having power, we were taught different of what we are told now and different probably of the other peoples' perception. (I was talking to an American teacher this summer and she had no idea we had even been in WWII! She was surprised to find we had fought both directions, East and West, all the way.)
Anyway, for many years, August 23rd here meant huge shows on the stadiums glorifying the communist regime and its leaders. Thousands of people, from workers to students and teachers (a lot of them!) who were announced in May they had been "selected" to take part and they would start rehearsing in June, as everything had to be perfect. That meant you'd spent at least two months scorching in the sun day by day, no excuse accepted. In the end, the result looked like this. And you were free to enjoy the rest of the summer, if you could.
The day was free, most of those not taking part in the show were supposed to go to the big march and parade that took place in every town. It was our national holiday. Now it's only a bitter memory, which led to this uninteresting post.

Greetings from the Black Sea

Constanta is a old town and a big harbour, the biggest in Romania, but unfortunately it has been neglected from the touristic point of view, unlike the neighbouring resort, Mamaia, which is the most expensive sea resort we have. I haven't seen much done in Constanta (except that it has many good museums), but in Mamaia there are a lot of attractions, such as a Waterpark, or a cable car crossing the resort over the hotels.
Here are some views from Constanta, hoping that it will have a better fate in the future years.

The Turkish population is still present in Dobrogea and one traditional thing you must taste is Turkish coffee boiled in hot sand. It's boiled in small copper kettles, served very hot in very small cups, and it's savory and strong.

As much as I could see of the tower of the big mosque.

Th list of the antique Roman and Greek settlements in Dobrogea and a piece of the city wall. There are a few Roman vestiges and a big archaeological museum which also has a park.

A windmill coming from the Danube Delta.


Nobody to rescue right now. Let's rest!

Jazz

A wonderful evening. The cloister in the monastery was great. All the arches with candles. It was warm at the beginning and then a little breeze made us put on our shawls but anyway the atmosphere was really nice. And the music was like a walk into The Beatles songs, jazz composers and the Deborah Carter's own records.
Such as I told the place was respected. It made me think about waht the Catholic Monarch would think if they saw what their Summer Residence was being used for.

Orange sunset

I did not play with the colors, it was just an orange late summer sunset. Melancholic and short-lived as a juicy fruit- too tempting to spare and too perfect to bite into.

PLI on the spotlight

Our proyect appears in a spotlight position in the digital magazine for ICT experiences.
This is good news.

Lost Castles

Demolished and forgotten castles in Bucharest. Jewels, maybe not lost forever.

Small secrets

Mountain rivers are a wonder. Cool water, high trees to get shelter from the heat, rounded stones to rest in and outside the water, flowing music. Silence shared with happy voices from small groups of bathers.

A very good scenery to exchange secrets. Isn't it?

Not a trifle, a gift

I had been thinking about the possibility of adding the banner to our blog. I just needed a push. It came from Irina.
Thank you for the gift.

The sad castle at Campina

There are many stories that we did not manage to tell about. Here is one of them that might be interesting, and a tourist attraction too.The story of Iulia Hasdeu’s castle at Campina is one of the most mysterious (and, by me, saddest) true legends in this part of the country.Iulia had been an “enfant prodige”: she had finished secondary school as she was 8, high school when she was 11. By that time she already spoke three foreign languages, wrote poems and plays. She studied then at the Conservatory in Bucharest and was admitted at Sorbonne when she was 16. She mastered Greek and Latin and was advancing in her studies of philosophy, history and philology. Iulia was preparing to pass her examination for a doctor’s degree, with a difficult topic: “The Unwritten Literature and Philosophy of the Romanian People: Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology, Ethics”. She was to become, at the age of 20, the first woman at the Sorbonne to take the Arts degree. To all this we should add that she had a wonderful voice that she cultivated taking canto lessons and her talent as a pianist was remarkable. She also had great painting skills. Unfortunately, she got ill with tuberculosis and died as she was just 19, in 1888.Her father, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, a writer, playwright, historian, and a great scholar, gave up his huge work Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae, which was planned to be the biggest Romanian dictionary ever, and dedicated himself entirely to the communication with his dead daughter, by means of spiritualism (if this is the right term). During a talk he had with her spirit, he was suggested a way to keep in touch with her, and according to him, she gave him the plans for building a mysterious castle at Campina, a town on the way to Sinaia. Actually, it’s not a big castle, more like a strange house, even more peculiar inside than outside, built with a lot of symbolic architectural elements and based on the numbers 3 and 7. The castle has three entrances, two secondary ones and a main sliding stone entrance, with a big eye above and two Sphinx statues on the sides.

The castle is now a museum, very well kept and with a lot of explanations, and the audio-guide’s explanations may make the hairs on the back of your neck stand. The most interesting things to see are the donjon, with the “Graal” and the roof window that allows the sunlight to fall on the head of Iulia’s statue, the room with no windows where he took photos of Iulia’s spirit, the parallel mirrors in every room (symbolizing a never-ending number of existences), and of course a lot of her objects and photos.
The dwellers of the town were so impressed with Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu’s suffering that they even began believing in the ghost’s existence and there were stories about Iulia playing the piano at night in her father’s applauses, or a silhouette wearing a white dress and daisies in her hair walking on the terraces. The stories are dead now, as is Iulia, but you cannot help feeling sorry for her and her father, two beautiful minds who lost the battle.

Summer walk on the Walls

It was a lovely walk on the Walls with my nephew. Children have a fresher look.

Old Lace and Embroidery at the Peasant's Museum

Stitched stories

There is a proverb that says:"The one who stitches and then undoes will keep busy all winter long".
One can meet this kind of fragile memories at the Old Lace and Embroidery exhibition at the Peasant's Museum these days. You might feel like exploring grandmother's hope chest. Think of how complicated a stitch can be to be called "chicken skin with a crossed stitch"!

There are more kinds of objects besides lace and embroidered things: chests, small hardware, table cloths, old cupboards and small furniture, old books on handiwork, old embroidery patterns collections, clothes, thread boxes, small things that someone gave a sentimental value and time added his own, because most are from the 19th century.

The exhibits are shown as if trying to recreate the atmosphere and a certain aspect of the life of people all over the country, even from Bessarabia or the disappeared island of Ada Kaleh. Old stories written on delicate things by hands that are long gone.

Photo source
Despite what the poster says, it's still open. Maybe I'll see it. Sounds nice, does it not? A calm moment before the new schoolyear and the news it's supposed to bring, as we are promissed for now: fewer jobs, smaller salaries and possibly two weeks without pay, in order to save the money. Let's learn how to sew, it might come handy!