the road to sinaia....

10-22-06 - in the last update i posted about sinaia...this quaint german-styled mountain town...the road to sinaia was pretty cool as well...i have been on this a few times now, as it is the same road to transylvania where i went my first week in romania...along the road are many farmers selling their goods and tons and tons of honey...which is really tasty...i have tried a few flavors from roadside vendors....yum!!!!


we stopped at two main places along the road...a set of cemetaries...both military and non-military...and where they store oil here in the country...above is a shot of a traditional non-military cemetary...they usually put families in the same plot and have pictures on the graves of the folks buried there....they seem to be more crowded than some of the cemetraies i have been to in the states...but are comparable to ones in new orleans or south america....although the dead are mostly below ground here...not above ground like in those two places....

this grave was for two brothers...so you can see their names and their pictures on the top of the gravestone...also, the graves are partially above the ground...and partially below ground...we stopped by on a sunday and it was busy with folks visiting their relatives...very interesting...

across the road from the non-military cemetary was a military cemetary from world war 2...one that was romanian...that is the one above...for the fallen soldiers....all of the headstones were the same...and there was a tall monument in the middle....most of the fallen men were about 20-24...but i guess that is the way of war...

next to the romanian cemetary was a russian military cemetary...where there were no dates...only names in russian...the two military cemetaries seemed to be about the same size and were very similar to war cemetaries i have seen elsewhere...including the states...it was interesting to stop by the side of the road and see this aspect of romanian history...

the other thing we stopped and took pictures of was the oil containers closer to bucharest...they look like nuclear power plants and a friend of mine in the states did tell me that romania has one nuclear reactor, but it is not really close to bucharest...i know this isn't it anyway...its the place where oil comes in and is processed before it gets used by the city and others surrounding it...

here's a shot of me with the oil pipeline...it reminded me, on a smaller scale, of the one i took a picture with this summer up in alaska...it was smaller, but just as important to this region....its wild to see the stacks on your way to the mountains or coming back in from them...but at the same time its good to know where your fuel supply comes from....in the next installment the trip to tismana with the kids...finally...