August 20, 2016. Spectacular Sunday Seven           by Nancy Sinnwell

Sunday was a marvelous day with seven exciting experiences. We started in Sibiu with breakfast in a beautiful baroque dining room; the ceiling (roof) opened up just as our excellent leader, George Meyer, entered the room. 

Being a Christian day of worship we walked to the Metropolitan Eastern Orthodox Cathedral to watch part of a service where the women sit or stand on the left side and men on the right.

Event number three was a visit to the Sibiu food market which had separate areas for meat, fruits , vegetables, cheese, flowers, etc. One interesting fruit was sea buck thorn (Catina), a tiny orange berry with a seed in the middle, which is tangy and rich in vitamin C.

Next was a long ride along the Carpathian Mountains where we saw fields of sunflowers and corn, and villages with red roofs with church steeples in the center( In this Saxon area of Transylvania there were few castles built for protection. These villages fortified their churches where everyone went for protection).

The Gothic style Caste Corvinilor was next and we viewed the exterior as well as the interior rooms. We drove past elaborately decorated gypsy (Roma) homes in a suburb on the way to the castle.

Another long ride along the mountains was next. Our final stop for the day was the town of Cluj-Napoka, the second largest city in Romania with approximately 80,000 university students during the school year. After a walking tour of several buildings and statues in the old city, we were on our own to find dinner and return to our hotel. There was a large crowd that came together for a concert in the large open plaza in the middle of the old town. Before the main concert there  was an excellent brass quintet ( 2 trumpets, a French horn, trombone and a bass ) playing from a balcony on the church steeple which was a perfect ending to a delightful day.