We had plenty of time in the afternoon to do a road trip through several small villages around Sighişoara.
Dumbrǎveni
We stopped here purely on a whim as we were passing through. It turned out to be a pretty interesting place.
This town begs the question: how many churches does one village really need?
Answer: at least one per block.
And I am finally beginning to recognize the different styles:
The white steeple, silver spiked Catholic beacons.
The domed Orthodox art shrines, Russian in style.
The low churches with their colorful portraits of saints in niches, all around the exterior. The paintings are full of secret hand signals and coded writing.
We found Dracula here, of all places.
Seriously.
He is the public face on the office of education. So they probably teach "Vampirism 101" as a high school science course here.
They have the oddest little police cars. Like you could probably do better on a bike.
Really?
And the electric poles through Romania are all made of concrete, with the wires held on by (an advanced version of) zip-ties. Kind of like Mexico.
Fact two: Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land in the time of Jesus looked just like Romania. There is Mary, in front of a Romanian style church. Here is Jesus, riding through the streets of Bucharest. and so on. Check out the photos on this post and others, to see that Jesus really lived around here.
Obviously.
All our traveling, road trips included, has cost us $17.50 in gas so far. I filled up half a tank of diesel today.
On the way out of every village there is a sign that says "Drum Bun" (droom boon).
"We wish you a good journey," or "farewell."