There's this scene in Singing In The Rain where Debbie Reynolds flippantly explains why she doesn't go to the movies that often: "If you've seen one, you've seen them all." Is it wrong that I started feeling that way in regards to the painted monasteries? I only started to feel this way once we reached our final monastery today. I suppose 5 is the magic number in this case.
We first visited the Sucevița Monastery, followed by the Humorului Monastery. The former is not only the largest monastery in the Bucovina region, but also has the most impressive frescoes (in my opinion). Because of this, Humorului was sort of setup to disappoint. It's significantly smaller, and the surrounding courtyard bare in comparison to the other monasteries. However, there were people inside the church who were in the process of restoring the frescoes, so we were able to observe how they slowly (very slowly) bring the paintings back to life.
It's unfortunate, yet understandable, that photographs cannot be taken inside the churches. Looking at the exterior of the churches you would expect the interior to be the same. But it's actually much more vibrant and complex. It's beautiful the way the paintings climb up the interior of the domes to depict various stories from the bible.
After our final monastery visits, we set off for Iași and once again enjoyed a beautiful drive. There was this one town we passed through that had bags of potatoes propped up on benches in front of people's homes. It seemed like everyone in that town was in the potato business, which had me wondering how anyone could make a profit with such steep competition.
We arrived in Iași around 6pm and booked a couple of nights at Hotel Unirea, so we'll be staying put for a day before Dad goes all road warrior on me again. We got to walk around a bit after eating at a place called CUIB. Good vegetarian food and atmosphere.