Yesterday we hiked first through a beech forest, then to a protected oak savannah, just outside of Sighisoara. It was a nice quiet hike, joined only by a giant herd of sheep and goats, and their partner dogs and humans, of course. Some of the beech had formed into candelabra shapes, similar to redwood we’ve seen on the coast. We followed a tree hiking blaze of a Red Cross on a white square, which compounded the feeling that we were in the forest from The Holy Grail.
We had our single huge meal in the afternoon, so at dinner time we just looked for a place to have wine. In the central square, we saw Ruth, the German organist we had seen the evening before (playing the organ in the old church). Perhaps noticing our awkward stares, she invited us over and we had several glasses of wine together. She told us about her life, both as a professional organist (which she still does) and as a choral director (which she’s retired from). She had a cheerful nature and remarked several times on the generosity of southeastern Europeans. She was full of beautiful thoughts about music and the “personalities” of different organs. She said that the Romanians had never “updates” their organs so they were each unique. She also said they were each a queen who had to be approached carefully and with respect, because they ruled the church but the organist was just a visitor.
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| Inside the clock of Sighisoara, each figure a day of the week. |
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| Like a boardgames, the town of Sighisoara was once run by guilds... the hatter guild would be my choice. |
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| Goodbye to beautiful Sighisoara. |
Today we rode 55 miles and had several tough hills - we were avoiding the direct route to Târgu Mures which meant a lot of quiet roads through towns. We saw some relative prosperity and some dire poverty, which (along with stray dogs) made me a bit melancholy. My legs are suitably sore, though I also feel myself getting into better shape with every day.
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| How we approach dogs: off our bikes, walking by. This makes us seem less like monsters. |
Riding into Târgu Mures, we could see a huge industrial district (that we avoided). The city itself feels a bit post-war/post-communist, wirh a few remnant Baroque jewels. We walked into the old fortress, which was mostly rebuilt (so felt brand new), and ran smack into a Ren Faire. There was music and larping and olde fashioned dice games. We were invited by a jolly old guy into an art show and he regaled us in broken but enthusiastic English the entire Serena versus Osaka game. Then he told us, sadly but still with occasional bursts of discordant laughter, about his tale of being robbed by the authorities. It was the latest of several such tales (joining one from a sad bartender whose grandfather’s land had been logged illegally, and others). This man had been a dentist but had had his license pulled because he had refused to pay certain bribes and had been robbed by some “authorities.” He said that “the low people, they steal, they go to jail. But the high people, it’s okay.”
Just as Sighisoara and Sibiu has German all over, this area is full of Hungarian. But it is even more pronounced, with people speaking it around us and signs in Hungarian all around us. We passed a Hungarian youth show, all of the participants dresses in lovely old clothes.
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| Romulus and Remus. |
But there is also the Romanian insistence on the Roman roots of the country: outside the city hall stood a statue of Romulus and Remus suckling a wolf. Romanian nationalists are apparently very attached to the theory that there is continuous lineage in this region from Romans to Romanians.
On the way to our apartment tonight, we went into an Orthodox Church, where the priest was (seemingly per usual) droning in a meditative way, hidden from the congregants. The impression given is that he is not really addressing them but they are just spectators, watching a man talk at god.
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