A Day in Old Orhel - Historical Ruins and Caves, Moldava Exchange 3, WTRD 19, August 28, 2016

Touring, Eating, Playing Games, and Opening the Piggy (cow) Bank

We all sang happy birthday to our host Marianna this morning while socializing over coffee at a cafe downtown.  About 30 of us loaded into two mini vans by 11:30 and headed to an area called Old Orhel, an hour and a half drive from Chisinau.

The area we we went to is an ancient sea bed at the top of the escarpment.  There is a deep valley below the cliffs with a river running through the valley.  It is difficult to know whether this was a natural depression under the sea or whether the river carved out the valley.  The cliffs of the escarpment are sandstone that easily erodes and which Christian monks carved out caves, much like the ones we saw in Cappadocia, Turkey.

We gazed down at the river and the Village below us on one side a ridge running down between valleys, and on the other fertile fields and cave dwellings in cliffs on the other side.

The vans here do not have air conditioning or even vents or windows that open. As the day grew warmer the vans became intolerably hot especially when we stopped moving.  The front windows opened and two overhead hatch windows tilted up slightly to let out the hot air and capture some incoming air as we moved along....but not when we stopped.  Then it was like being in a solar oven.  At each stop we bolted out of the van and lingered outside until the last minute to get back inside.

We visited some Turkish baths, circa Ottoman Empire.  The ruins of these baths had changing rooms, water heating rooms where runoff or spring water once ran down hill into the top level of the baths and was heated by fires then continue to run down hill into rock basins where there were separate pools and rock platforms for men and women.

From here we visited a tradition peasant home,

a small church carved into the escarpment cliff.

A church tower is built on the rock.  Patrons file down the stairs into a cave where there is now an alter and religious paintings.  An outdoor exit leads to an un-railed ledge that looks over the valley below.  The monks who lived and worked at this church had bedrooms of to the side of the main chapel.

Looking down from the Ledge of the Cliff Church

After stopping at the cave church, we visited another church up the hill

where we also found a geocache, our first in Moldova.

Our group did not get around to eating lunch until almost three pm.  Hosts Vasili and Nathalie helped us translate and pronunciate a stanza to the Moldovan anthem which we are to learn for a television interview on Tuesday.   They cracked up at  how our translator  app was translating and how we were mis-pronouncing the words.

There was a small wedding party at the restaurant.  The bride and groom were in heritage dress.





















We took one more photo of our group in Moldova

We did not return to Chisinau until 6:30.  Marianna called a cab from the drop-off point, and we returned to her home and had a late dinner of pasta with chicken balls in white sauce, and wonderful garden fresh tomatoes and basil.

Once the dinner dishes were cleaned up, the dining table became the game table for a  few rounds of Left, Right, Center  The game was fun, but even more so  with 8 year old Catalina playing with us.  Her enthusiasm and depression swung back and forth hilariously as luck was quite fickle.  When we had played 4 rounds, Russ was the only one who had not won a round.  He made a pouty face that delighted Catalina.

By now it was pretty late and really should have been everyone's bed time, but Russ asked if he could trade Catalina a few American dollars for some small coins for his coin collection  that she might have in her possession.  She went into her room and trotted out with a cow bank, which she proceeded to open and Marianna dumped out on the table.

The bank was filled with small coins, each worth about 1/10 of five cents American, 1/2 of a penny.   Catalina had made a good deal.  Even though the bank was nearly full, I doubt whether there were 400 coins that would have made up the 2 dollars.

We had a lovely at home evening with our host family.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel Rs in Moldova.