art in the snow

this is an outdoor exhibition in front of the city hall . it's been there for a few months , day , night , rain , snow or shine . it's nice that nothing happened , no vandals got to "improve" the artists work . we should be grateful for little things like these trying to make the sidewalks of the city a better place .

snow again

well...some fresh snow 2 days ago ... it's a very white and frozen winter . and it seems so long .

i have no idea how you call this but it's obvious what it does . it's used for the streets and squares in the old town where it's not enough room for the big ones .

cetatea 9

so finally we get to the core . starting from the outside we made our way to the inner circle . this is the interior yard with the fountain , 81 m deep .

i hope you had a good time visiting this old fortress .

cetatea 8

the medieval restaurant with the entrance , the replicas of some old guilds flags , the office entrance with some old trunks .

cetatea 7

one of the stairs going to the basement (it's one in each corner) guarded by a cannon .

grape vines over one of the terraces around the castle .

the winery . i don't know if they still have wine inside , i never had the chance to go there .

cetatea 6

a few shots from the inside . you can see the castle . in the first one you can see the alfresco of the transylvanian restaurant , a place very popular 20 years ago , some kind of a last resort if you wanted to find beer in the summer . hard to imagine but in the "beautiful" years of the communism era sometimes the restaurants in brasov were out of beer !

cetatea 5

let's go inside the walls . and this is the first thing you see once you pass the gate , the castle . the cannons are not real , only replicas and not very good ones . a map of the place and a short description of it's history . looks rather cheesy , not to mention the air-con unit ... so what if it's 500 years old , let's put some air-con outside the windows and right in front of the entrance . how stupid can they be ?

cetatea 4

an outside tour around the citadel where you can see all the 4 sides of it .

cetatea 3

so , after you climb the (sorry , i didn't count , i don't know how many) stairs you can see this . the entrance , the main gate . for special ocasions , festivals (we have a medieval festival and used to have a pop music festival called the golden stag) they have a whole ritual to enter the citadel . but usually the gate is open and you just go inside , like i said , there's nobody there .

cetatea 2

there are 3 ways to get to the citadel , only one by car (photo 2) which is the longest but the only one safe to use . i always use the stairs but there are a lot of them . the third one was the nicest one but now can't really be used . the place is kinda off the path and in a bad shape so no many people go there , not to visit anyway . sometimes groups of tourists are taken there for diner but otherwise the place is very quiet . when i went there last week to take pictures i didn't see anybody else (except for some employees) .

cetatea 1

starting a new series .
the brasov citadel (cetatea brasov) is situated on the citadel hill , strategically overlooking the town and was part of brasov’s outer fortification system . in 1524 a wooden bastion with 4 towers was built but destroyed in 1529 . at the end of the 16th century it was replaced with a stone structure . destroyed again by fire was entirely rebuilt in 1625 . in 1627 a 81 m deep fountain well was dag . in 1630 the 4 bastions / towers were added at the corners . over the years it lost its importance and it was abbandoned . it served as depot , storehouse , military garrison and barracks , even prison between 1940 and 1950 . from 1981 after a masive renovation has become a touristic complex medieval style with several restaurants , outdoor terraces , bar , winery , night club . quite popular in the 80’s now is almost dead .
this picture is from 1923 and you can see there are no trees . it was the same for all the hills in and around the city . now is different , you can see trees everywhere .

colors

past few days the weather has been warm . thank you ! ... hahaha . but now everything is dirty , grey and wet . i need some colors . my blog also need some colors . so , from the archive , a picture from last summer . the theme for the flower arrangements in the city center last summer was tulips . yellow and red . i can't wait to see flowers on the streets again . i wonder what they're gonna use this year .

lamps

lamps on the dramatic theatre building . goes well with the medieval "theme" of the city although the building is from the 60's . speaking of which , i haven't seen a play in a very long time . shame on me !

save

i found this on a wall of a house on baritiu street . so cool , it looks like something from the movie 12 monkeys .

anyone thinks that humanity can be saved ? if you ask me i would say no , not really . not if you think about the world today . i think that , maybe (hopefully ... hahaha) not in my lifetime but quite soon , the human society as it is today will have to face some huge serious consequences .

well , we'll see ...

there are many things that we don't know because we don't think about them .

church 12

this one is also one of the oldest monuments in brasov .
the evangelical saint martin church .
built in the 14th century , the bell is from 1521 and the present look is from 1792 .
it seems that the parish house was the place for the first city hall .


this is my last post in the church series . of course there are many more churches in brasov , probably around 60 - 70 , but it's enough . anyway , these are the most important ones .

church 11

this is the synagogue in brasov , near to the schei gate . was built between 1899 and 1901 in the spanish style with roman and gothic elements and renovated in 2001 .
jews have lived in brasov since 1807, when Rabbi Aaron Ben Jehuda was given permission to live in the city, a privilege until then granted only to saxons. the jewish community of brasov was officially founded 19 years later, followed by the first jewish school in 1864 and the building of the synagogue in 1901. the jewish population of brasov expanded rapidly to 1,280 people in 1910 and 4,000 in 1940 and 6000 in 1950 . after that almost everybody left . now the community has some 200 members .

church 10

saint peter and paul catholic cathedral .

buil between 1776 and 1882 on the site of an old dominican church , the cathedral is considered to be the most representative baroque style building in brasov .

it's situated on muresenilor street in the old town centre .

church 9

the saint bartholomew church .

this is the oldest architectural monument in brasov . it was built like a fortification and some of the surrounding defense wall is still standing . the church was not in the old town corona / kronstadt but in the village some 2-3 km away .now is between the brasovechi and bartolomeu districts . construction started in 1223 . the syle is roman and gothic and it’s 55 m long with 30 m wide . in the beginning it was catholic but from the xvi century it became lutheran and i think now is evangelical . the tower is from 1842 after the old tower collapsed at the earthquake in 1833 . the clock in the tower is recent , from 1923 . inside , still very well preserved one can see fragments of the original frescoes .

the parish house (last photo) was built in the 20th century in a neo-gothic style

church 8

this is another popular church . the saints peter and paul orthodox church on aurel vlaicu street .

it was built between 1957 - 1966 .

if you have time please check out my 21 best people portraits from singapore , series posted on my other blog . i only want the bad critics so please let me know how to get better ... hahaha

see it here

church 7

the saint kings constantin and elena orthodox church .
built between 1990 – 2004 . after 1989 (the anticommunist "revolution") people started to build churches . dozens in brasov , tens of thousands in romania . but because the money is not enough sometimes it takes a long time and some of them are not finished yet . this is one of the biggest and it's in the valea cetăţii / răcădău district .

church 6

the holy trinity (greek) orthodox church .
the romanian population didn’t have the right to live in the city until 1771 . they didn’t have the right to have their churches facing the streets until 1918 . so they had to build churches in the courtyards , like this one built in 1787 in a baroque style but without a tower or a bell . it served for romanians and greeks orthodox until 1833 . between 1833 and 1942 the service was only in greek .
in the small photo you can see the entrance from the street (baritiu street near to the council square) through this passage . one of my best friends used to live here in the house facing the street and i spent a lot of time in this place .

church 5

i want to continue with the church series that i started some time ago .
Saint george orthodox church
The building is from 1903 and was a private residence . the owner was passionate about hunting and in the second photo you can see 2 statues of a bear and a hunter . i don't know all the details but in 1934 was transformed in a church .