Suceava

The first full day I was in Suceava,  I stayed in bed most of the day, proving once again that spending time in airports is more tiring than climbing mountains. Suceava is not a pretty town, mostly because there is no Old Town. My Airbnb host said,  unlike in many other Romanian towns, the Communists tore it down.

I have a luxury apartment in a high rise for about $53 a night. It has beds for 7 but my host prepared only the twin room since I said Nicole may or may not stay with me instead of letting me have the other bedroom which I obviously deserved.

The second day, I took a tour of 4 of the 8 painted monasteries. All 8 were painted by a father and two sons over 500 years ago. Parts of the outsides have faded but the inside colors are close to the original. All they've done is clean the candle smoke off the painting.  The paintings show various Bible stories and there's complicated symbolism.

Most of the monasteries are still occupied by nuns. My guide said they're not nice enough for the monks.  Romania remains one of the most chauvinist societies in Europe.  This guy kept telling me what to do and I had to follow in his footsteps.  My guide in Slovenia was much nicer. This guy was nice enough as long as I did what he said.

On the other hand, he knows everyone at the monasteries so he took my phone and took pictures in the interiors even though it's forbidden.  You pay 10 lei (under $3) to photograph the outside of each building but I just paid that once. He got tired of watching me try to take pictures since I know nothing about lighting or angles.

For lunch, we stopped at a resort and he ordered my lunch but he made good choices. Cream of mushroom soup made of mushrooms from the forest, a piece of chocolate cake, and a liqueur made from wild blueberries.  Everything is homemade there. There were blueberries at the bottom of the glass. Blueberry liqueur is also one of the traditional liqueurs of Slovenia. 

Driving through the mountains is beautiful when there's no snow or rain

Nicole and company left Brasov at 3 a.m. for the 8 hour trip to Suceava.  They have a small van and were terrified by the driver who drove like a maniac through the mountains.  Romanian drivers are always scary.  They pass each other when there's a car coming the other way but somehow usually miss a head on collision.

The last time Trapdoor performed here, they performed in a gigantic bar but now there's a new theater. The director of the theater said she missed that bar. This theater is fabulous.  The actors had a little sleep but the tech crew was up for 24 hours and didn't have time to eat. But the play was a big success. There were 240 people in the audience which they managed to seat in about 5 minutes. They leapt to their feet and yelled Bravo. The woman sitting next to me was the sister-in-law of the theater director.  She started explaining to me about the playwright and how famous he is, but of course,  I got to say I know him. He is going to be at the Chisinau festival since it's named after him, the Matei Visniec International Theater Festival.

After the play, we ate at the finest restaurant in Suceava,  Latino. It's an Italian restaurant.  There's  also a pizza place in town called Taco Loco. They didn't want to serve us because it was so late but they did. The food was great. And it cost about $80 for drinks and about 10 meals.  It is truly cheaper to visit here than stay home.