I have to be perfectly honest, all of the fortified churches and citadels are starting to look alike :-). I'm having difficulties remembering which one is which. Thank goodness I take notes as well as photos!
However, this morning we had a break from all of that. Florin surprised us with a visit to a Danes Horse farm/ resort. Danes horses are a special breed that are found in this region. You come to this resort to ride them and for training. It also has a small animal zoo. Florin said "animal" and I was all in:-)
The place was absolutely beautiful. The grounds were lush and impeccably maintained. Large wooden cutouts of horses acted as planters for cascades of blooming plants. It was so different from anything we had seen so far.
Danes Horse Training Resort
The animal zoo was small but nice. We saw goats as well as deer and ponies. Llama were in one pen while next to them were a couple of highland cows! Next to the coos (as they are called in Scotland) was a solitary Himalayan camel. It was the hairiest camel I have ever seen. He came right up to the fence. I think he wanted a handout. There was even a kangaroo! He totally ignored us.
Himalayan came
In the training area a solitary man and horse were pulling a rig that grated the dirt. Somebody said the horse's name should be Zamboni. I was hoping to see some horses training but we weren't that lucky. We did get to go in one barn with the horses. They were beauties. Two had really young foals. One was two days old and the other three. The three year old was up and wobbling around. He wasn't use to his long legs yet. The other foal was sound asleep. They were both adorable. There was also one small section with ponies. I could have stayed there all day but we had to move on. I loved the stop though.
Three-day old foal
Today our citadel of choice was in the small town of Biertan. It is one of Transylvania's most important medieval villages, As such, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The beginnings of the village go back to the Hungarian King Louis the Great In 1342. As time passed the little village grew and developed. By 1572 it was the home to the Saxon Archdiocese of the Evangelical church. It would be that for the next three hundred years. It was about this same time that the villagers began constructing the fortified church (1572).
Biertan was a Saxon village, of course. It use to have a population of 2,000 people but they don't have more than 300 now. The youngest house here is 200 years old. The oldest is 300. In 1989 after the fall of Communism, most of the Saxons left the village. Most went to Germany. Some do come back to visit.
Bieretan Fortified Church: you can see all three walls
The fortified church is on top of the highest hill, as we have learned is typical. It is surrounded by stone walls with lookout towers and strong gates. The church itself is late gothic architecture with the beautiful high, vaulted ceilings. It was built in the 12th century by the Catholics. Then when the Saxons changed religion, they converted it to an Evangelical church. People only lived in the fortified church if they were under siege. This one was never under siege.
This fortified church did have one element that the others did not have. It had a prison for people who wanted to divorce. They were required to stay in the one room sharing a tiny bed, single plate, cup, knife, and fork for a maximum of six weeks. Only one couple went through this and still decided to divorce.
From one vantage point, we had a clear view of all three walls which was nifty. The animals were fed in the second enclosure which makes sense. They were protected there. The divorce prison was in the third wall. The first wall has four towers and it dates back to the 14th century. The second wall was built at the same time as the church. It uses arches to reinforce the wall. The third wall dates back to the 16th and 17 centuries. It also has towers. The clock tower serves as a gate within the inner fortifications. There is also the wooden Bell tower as well as the Mausoleum tower which has the headstones of the priest who built the church as well as the bishops buried at Biertan. For those Saxon Catholics who did not convert to the Evangelical church, there was the Catholic Tower.
We walked around the outer wall and up. You could see the buttresses used to maintain the outer most wall. Once inside the first wall, we saw several vendors selling their goods. One lady was using a hatchet to make a wooden bowl. She was fast. Usually her husband is here doing the woodwork but today it was her. We strolled under the reinforcing arches of the second wall and passed the Tower Gate and Town Hall Tower. I was amazed at how much green space there was. Plenty of room to graze their cows and sheep. Eventually we came to the Clock tower and entered the inner sanctum of the fortification. In all of her glory stood the church which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It's a hall church with three naves. It was the last such church built in Transylvania. It was no shocker to learn that it was built on the site of an earlier Romanesque church. The church was built between 1486 and 1524. The church is protected by the Clock Tower, the Bell Tower, the Gate Tower, and the Bacon Tower. (Love that name!)
I expected it to be dark and dreary on the inside but I was pleasantly surprised. The walls were a light color as was the ceiling. The tall ceilings gave it a light and airy feeling. Back behind the alter was a huge iconostasis (do Evangelical Churches call them that or just Orthodox churches?). The altarpiece is made up of 28 panels that were likely painted in Vienna and Nuremberg. It is the largest alter piece in Transylvania. According to the signage, the panels were painted in 1483. It is constructed in such a manner that during regular days it displays one set of paintings and on feast days a different set. Regular work days depict various saints. The feast days panels depict the Crucifixion.
Another significant feature of the church is the organ. It was massive. The church went through several before the one that is there now. In 1868 the previous organ was destroyed when the ceiling collapsed. A year later the community purchased this organ from Vienna. It was built with two manuals, one pedal, 25 organ stops, and 1290 pipes!
The vaulted ceilings had a peculiar design but the really cool piece of the church was the door into the sacristy. It looked like your typical medieval door until you went inside the room. Then you saw that it had a MASSIVE locking mechanism. Literally the entire back of the door was a lock. The mechanism works four locks and 15 ferrules that sink into the wall. The door was so special that it was exhibited at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris.
Sacristy Door with the massive locking system
I always enjoy the frescoes in churches and Florin pointed out some peculiar ones. There were two clowns painted at the base of two ceiling supports. The popular story is that the people didn't pay the artists who painted the church. In an act of revenge, they painted the two clown faces.
Clown fresco in the church
Leaving the church, I peeked over the wall and was freshly astounded at the beauty of the countryside. The terraced rolling hills, green and vibrant, red tile roofed houses with colorful exteriors. I swear it was just like being in a fairytale world. It couldn't have been more different from our neighborhood in Florida.
As we walked by it, we took a peek inside the Catholic Tower. The frescoes inside were amazing considering how old they were. They were painted in the 1500s. Wow! We also peeked inside the divorce cell. It was tiny and the bed looked smaller than a twin. It was an interesting idea that these Saxons had.
Divorce Prison
Instead of walking back down the way we had come into the inner sanctum, we took the covered stairway. It was very much like the Scholar's Stairs in Sighisoara. It was much easier and faster than the way we had come up. And it was nice to experience something different.
Back on the bus we had one more stop to make before heading back to Sighisoara and our lunch date with Vlad III. In Malacrav village we met a lady who is a fabulous rug weaver. Carla has exhibited her rugs all the way in London. To prove it was all organic and made by her, she had to bring her loom as well as her wool. Sheesh! Even King Charles III has visited her. He bought a rug with a Transylvania pattern.
Her loom is over 100 years old. It belonged to an old Saxon who was going to use it for firewood. Carla stopped him and took it off his hands. She fixed it up and has been weaving rugs on it ever since. She is truly amazing as she makes her yarn and dyes it all herself. I don't think she shears the sheep though :-). She showed us the different colors and told us what she used to create that specific color. She also uses three different types of wool. She gets the brown color from boiling the wool with walnut husks. She uses mint for green, red onion for red, etc. She boils the dye material with the wool for a specific time and then adds a bit of vinegar and salt to fix the color. Then she takes it off the stove and immediately plunges the dyed wool into cold water to keep the color strong. Then the wool is dried in the shade.
Carla is demonstrating how she makes her yarn
She is from Moldova so she uses a mix of Moldovian technique as well as Transylvanian technique in her weaving. Most of her patterns are folk art. Moldova used a red rose pattern that she is fond of. She has an old pattern book from 1904 that she uses a great deal. It was literally falling apart. She creates some of her own patterns as well as she likes to create rugs that tell a story.
To make the rug she has to decide on the design and then make the paper pattern. It looked very complicated to me. It could only be as wide as her loom so she does have constrictions in what she can weave. The interesting thing about her technique is that is it double-sided. You can put it on the floor with either side up. I've not seen a rug like that before. She actually cuts the yarn but it is pressed so tightly that it doesn't unravel.
We enjoyed our time with Carla. She was an interesting and talented woman. I certainly wouldn't have the patience to weave rugs like that. Bless her for doing it.
Back in Sighisoara it was time for our date with Vlad. His birthplace is now a nice restaurant as well as a souvenir shop—fancy that! The restaurant was doing a good business. The room we were in was full of people. The plates as well as the napkins had a fanciful dragon on them. The ceiling was made of timber which I always like. You could still see some of the old frescoes on the wall where the renovation people had left them. The bulk of the walls were white plaster. No blood was dripping anywhere but we did hear some screaming. At first we thought the restaurant had sound effects. Nope, it was just some unhappy boy.
We had a nice sausage goulash with polenta for lunch. It actually was the right amount of food. I didn't feel stuffed. But I didn't eat all of the polenta either. They served fruit for dessert. All in all, a good meal. However, I topped it off with a special treat once we left the house/restaurant. I had been eyeing the langos cart for a couple of days. Langos are a Romanian donut basically. It was very much like the fried dough we had at Rila Monastery. However, here you could add toppings. I, of course, went for chocolate. It was good, not as good as Rila, but still good. I was nice and shared it with Doug. The things was huge. There was no way I could eat it all by myself.
We were on our own by this point. As it was drizzling, we decided to get some cash at the ATM and then head back to the room. On the way, we spotted the Pied Piper weathervane so I got a picture of it. We also got a photo of Remus and Rómulus with their wolf mother. We had seen this statue in Brasov as well. Then we detoured through the grocery store. They are alway fun to browse in.
We hit the road again tomorrow for Sibiu via the Salina Turda which is a salt mine. That should be interesting. I knew there was a salt mine in Poland and Austria but had no clue there was one here. That should be an interesting stop along the way.
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