Romania Pictures: Part II

These are some photographs from the gorgeous painted monasteries and churches of Moldavia. When I resized these ones, there was so much detail they needed to be resized a second time to fit in with blogger's rules, which is why its taken me so long to get them up. These'll make the last of my summer photos. Now I suppose I better catch up and put some Myanmar ones on here.
Inside one of the old wooden churches that dot the Moldavian countryside. It was covered in soot, and fading badly, but really impressive all the same. That's the old chandelier for candles down the middle.
The typical structure of the outside of the churches. The paintings were the same on all the churches. They basically told the stories of the bible for the illiterate villagers to understand. The main reason to visit the various churches is that each is in a different state of repair, and usually, the wall in the best condition is different for each church. So you visit one for their ark story, another for Jerusalem, another for the saints, etc, etc. There are very few windows, one entrance at the back, and decoration on the plaster within and without. They must have been devilishly cold in winter!
The wares available outside the church. Very folksy, and I surprised myself by not finding very much that I wanted to buy in Romania!
The inside of one of the churches, the dome is really a series of arches, each decorated and separated to tell the biblical stories.
An outside wall in an interesting shadow.

Here I am standing in front on some of the interior paintings.

The gift shop within a monastery. Lots of icons and religious/saintly images. I have difficulty relating to these kinds of things, but I will admit they are unique and beautiful (an important, at least from a cultural perspective).
One wall with all the heads of saints on it. I wouldn't recognize half of them, but others certainly would!

A view of the most outstanding monastery that we saw. I climbed the hill behind it to see it from above. It is fortified of course, as things had to be in the middle ages, but if the powers that be wanted to invade, the monastery would not have put up a fight, but flowed with the ebbs of power.