The windows of a house are its eyes. And it is said that the first thing that rots in a living being are the eyes. So, for a house, losing its windows would be the first sign of its death.
This house has an unusual, curved windows shape, coming probably from the shapes used traditionally in churches. It is both elegant and austere, simple and graphical. Less is more.
There are many 19th century beautiful and neglected houses in my town. Houses that weep.
My favorite churches are not currently in use. They are wooden churches in the Village Museum. They were transfered here piece by piece from distant corners of the country.
There is no nail in them, the beams are just joined together.
I like to enter them, feel the old wax candles smell, touch the worn out wood and think of all the people that stayed here, thought, prayed and maybe found comfort.
Their faith and hope made the place special.
It is not the most famous view of this church, but I like it. It is San Nicolás church. It is in the south of Ávila near the Adaja river. It is Romanesque. The inhabitants in the area, farmers and craftmen, wanted to have a church similar to the ones noble families worshipped God in. I particularly like this tower. 
Santo Tomé el Viejo,another Romanesque church. Today it is used as an extension of the Province Museum. You can find there important remains of old cultures.
Every town has small churches. Bring them out
As a souvenir from the industrial revolution in Ávila, the high tower of the Light Factory remains below the old towers in the Walls. Perhaps this is a symbol of the town. The oldest construction is still in use, although not with a defensive character but as a tourist attraction, whereas the sign of modernity is just something left there.
These are three utilitarian old towers.
The first one is a firemen 's watch tower, called "Foişorul de foc", as it is now and as it looked in 1929.
It was built in 1890 in order to be used as a watch tower, to spot fires, as it was very tall for that time (it's 42 m tall), but also as a water tower. Unfortunately, due to its height, it never played this second role. The existing water pumps were not powerful enough to fill it.
It was used for fire-spotting until 1935 and then transformed into the Firemen Brigade Museum in 1963.
The second and the third ones are water towers that had different destinies. While the last one, that I particularly liked, was demolished two years ago, the other one was luckier. A supermarket was built near it and, unexpectedly, instead of being taken down after years of neglect, it was renovated and kept as a scenery element.
Three towers, each one with its own fate.
Few people know there are three 19th century mills in Bucharest. This one, the first steam mill in the town, was built in 1853 near Obor Market by a merchant named George Assan.
The building process was stopped by the authorities on account of the chimney's height and was only resumed later, after the payment of security money.
The mill became the attraction of the area and was called "Assan's steamboat", while its clock set the neighbourhood's time. It was modern and kept up to date until the 1948 nationalization.
Although it was declared a national monument in 2005, due to its architectural value and because it represents an important moment of the Romanian industry, it is currently in a very bad shape.
Just another place in our town that deserved more.
This is what I see from my rear balcony. These windows are also part of our town and they belong to citizens that walk the same streets we do, pass by the same monuments we do and live in the same place we do.
However, these views are not artistic. Sometimes they, even, show the laziness and the boredom of everyday life.
But they are ours and deserve a little thought
Not everything is art in our towns. There are blocks of flats, schools, supermarkets, offices, public buildings. And sometimes what we see is not beautiful, just useful.
Not everybody has the same economical resources, so the areas in a town are completely different and the facilities are different too. Street markets are a good example. However, this is the place we live in.
Find out these other places.
In 1988 archaeologists discovered in the Northern part of Dobrogea, the territory near the Black Sea, a unique religious settlement. It consisted of two chapels and living quarters, and was supposed to belong to the 4th -6th century a.C.. After studying it and finding many art objects and a hoard consisting of gold Roman and Byzantine coins , they buried the settlement, in order to protect it until money would be found for its restoring.
Years passed by and the lot was sold to a company who started building on it. So one day, as the guardian of the site was absent, bulldozers came and leveled the ground. The settlement is gone.
Now the newspapers ask who is guilty: the company's managers, who asked no permission, the local mayor, who "failed to tell them", or the absent guardian?
Does it matter?
I don't think we should walk on our toes around history. Our town is a living being and this mixture of old and new can give it charm and graphicalness.
But the dwellers of Bucharest still recall the old center of the town that was demolished to make room for the "House of People", though it had been part of what had been once called "The Little Paris". Or the historical buildings and old churches thoughtlessly replaced by parking lots, shopping centers or boulevards. They can never be brought back.
These things should never happen, no matter what their "reason" could be.
I think the young people should learn that. What do you think?
It's a strange winter. Usually, we have a lot of snow and I can still remember schools being closed a few years ago on account of that.
But this year, like no other in my life, there is no snow at all and no frost. It only snowed twice, for an hour or two, turning our pupils into lunatics and the school into a madhouse, and melted in no time.
We're living an eternal early spring and bugs are getting out already. But, although spring is my favorite season, this "fake"one brings me no joy. It's like a kiss through a glass window.
How about winter in your town?
The river in Bucharest is Dâmboviţa. According to studies, its name comes from Slavonic and means "oak-tree leaf", but the legend says this was the name of a beautiful girl that enticed the shepherd named Bucur and made him build a small settlement here.
A folk song says: "Dâmboviţa, you sweet water, he who drinks you leaves here no more". The river creates a series of lakes on its way through the town, like a string of beads, and parks were born around most of them. Seagulls have found shelter on the lakes and even on the river itself, which is really strange because the sea is 300 kilometers away. They just came for winter and never left again.
Maybe the song is true, after all.
The melancholy of a misty autumn morning invites nobody to go for a walk in the park, sit down to breath the cool air and listen to the silent sounds around. The bench is just there, waiting for somebody to share the cold breeze coming down from the mountains.
Walkers are lazy, children at school but, later in the year the place may become a rock to climb, a castle to take shelter.
Simply, a bench
Bridges have made part of our landscape for years and years, since the oldest Roman ones to the newest iron bridges we build in our time.
They have a great responsibility on them, joining people and towns. Rivers, besides providing citizens with water, are a natural barrier for both defending possessions and splitting populations. Thus, bridges become one of the most valuable constructions for a town.
The river can make the countryside look so beautiful. There are a lot of nice bridges. Along the river one can walk and feel so happy and free. I like the Odra River very much. I live next to it and its canal. It is a kind of the island. In Opole there are 3 such islands made by the river.
Our old towns have become surrounded by our modern societies. New buildings, supermarkets, roads, parking-lots have grown around churches, palaces, cathedrals.
Sometimes, aesthetics rules have been followed. Others, business interests have won.
So, the result is not the same for all our old towns.
Can art and history coexist with our shopping centres and blocks of houses?
Look for examples in your town to answer the question
I was given this light as a present in a night party. Ávila is famous for its clean light. Being the highest town in Spain, with a cloudless sky and no smoke from factories or heavy traffic, days are bright. And the last rays of a brilliant day remain when darkeness arrives creating a view similar to the one in the picture.
Mistery, romance in the air. And the prediction of another sunny hot day.
Valentina
Light can dramatically change the look of a place. I particularly like sunset and evening. Their kind of light brings mystery even to a simple place like my park and warmth even to a huge official building like the People's House.
Light can influence our feelings: think about a candle-lit evening or the glow of a fireplace, or the new hope in a sunrise.
And light also means colors. Seeing them is a wonderful thing, the world would really be sad in black and white.
Enjoy the kinds of light around you!
