We had an abrupt awakening at 6:15 a.m. when our phones sounded an urgent alarm to warn us that a bear had been spotted in Sibiu. This is the story from “Romania Posts in English”:
“A bear set the Sibiu authorities on fire. For more than 30 hours, the animal has been searched for in the city, but also in the surroundings. He was first filmed on Wednesday morning on a residential street looking for food in a dumpster. A day later, the bear was seen near the airport, but managed to escape just as it was to be tranquilized, the journalists from the Council Tower write.”
A first for us! We learned from Wikipedia that Romania has 6000 European brown bears. They can weigh as much as 1000 pounds and be as much as 8 feet in length. Happily, we made a safe departure from Sibiu without encountering a bear.
We took the scenic route on our drive to our next stop, Cluj-Napoca. The Romanian countryside is lovely and we enjoyed the drive. We drove through the small villages of Cisnadie, Cisnadioara, and Sibiel.
We stopped in Sibiel to see Father Zosim Oancea Museum of Icons on Glass. Father Oancea was detained for 15 years during the Communist era and when he was released in the 1960’s, he was appointed the priest of this parish. He brought his collection of Icons on Glass to Sibiel and established the museum here.
We were fortunate to have a tour by a Romanian woman who didn’t speak English but she spoke French. Larry easily followed along and translated for me. Our first stop was the Church of the Holy Trinity.
The walls of the church are covered with 18th century frescoes. At some point they became darkened by smoke from candles and were painted over with whitewash. Father Zosim Oancea led an effort to have the whitewash removed and the frescoes restored. The church is Romanian Orthodox and still in use today.
The Icon Museum is in a building behind the church. The icons on glass are beautiful and the colors brilliant. Some of the early pieces were from the 1500’s such as this one of St. George (below) who is popular in Romania. These icons were painted by folk artists from the region of Transylvania.
We’ve arrived in Cluj-Napoca and the car is parked. We’ve heard that the restaurants are good here so we’re on our way to check them out. We had a nice day visiting rural Transylvania – especially Sibiel!
