I, along with my family, always called ourselves belonging to the woods as we always felt the best when being surrounded by the wilderness of nature, staying out of touch from technology, fancy stuff and expensive habits.
It's a thing that kept strengthening with each passing year, every spot explored in nature, but also by the dozens of nights spent sleeping in a tent and watching the starry sky.
However, a thing that is very different from this passion but which still means at least as much as the outdoors life does is to learn a bit more about the past of our beloved Romania by exploring genuine parts of history which often can be translated into castles, citadels, towers, ruins, monasteries, tombs, or even the monuments or graveyards of those that a long while ago led or played a major role for the country.
I won't get too much into details but let's say I was unlucky to have history teachers both in school and in high school that as much as they loved their career, they did a terrible job teaching the students or sharing the same love further. So when it comes to history, my knowledge is quite limited and I am both sad and ashamed of that.
Happily, this thing started to change when we made it an unwritten tradition to have a yearly road trip where we surround most of the country, jumping from caves and waterfalls to museums and monuments, from mountains and lakes, to churches, castles, fortresses, and many more. And there was no way to end the roadtrip from 2023 before earning some extra knowledge about the past of the country.
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We were in Turda, a city that we've previously explored but which we wanted to rediscover it again in 2023. Sadly, the luck wasn't part of our trip as most of the city was real chaos with many of the main roads being under construction which led to plenty of things we wanted to see around to be cut down from our list being literally impossible to reach.
That's how activating an emergency plan, we started zooming in and out the map, looking for what other places we could reach and explore during our stay in town, one of them being Mihai Vodă Monastery that seemed like a good idea, all of us being quite religious.
Sadly, the road was entirely missing on the way there, but as we assumed this couldn't be too far from the sign at the beginning of the path, we started walking around, meeting plenty of workers who seemed rather amused to find tourists who wanted to see that place, even if the road was missing. But after many challenges, we met along our trips, we ended up not letting ourselves be easily defeated.
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Even if we were there for the monastery, we were pleasantly surprised to meet a sculpture that we first thought was a monument for Mihai Vodă being also the name of the church. But as we approached, we were twice surprised, seeing that this is not just a monument, but actually, the tomb where Mihai Vodă is resting for already a few centuries now.
Mihai Vodă also known as Michael the Brave was the first lord of Tara Romaneasca for around 7 years, later on becoming the most important man that led the path to building the country of Romania from today, which back then was divided in Tara Romaneasca, Moldova and Transylvania.
I know Vlad Tepes, or Vlad Dracula is more known to some of you since Transylvania earned
the title of being the home of Dracula, so keep in mind that Michael the Brave was the great-great-great-grandson of Vlad Dracula, making it an untamed fighter in front of the enemies and dedicating most of his life even from an early age, to protect the country we have today.
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Before the monument that is 1601 meters tall and which represents the year when Michael the Brave died, this place didn't look like this from all the time. Initially, there was a very minimalistic wooden chalet but this was the direction of a lightning bolt that set it on fire, so in 1977 everything was renovated with stronger materials, keeping inside the tomb just the body of Michael the Brave, while the head is part of the ruins from Targoviste, where the lord played an important role.
The names you see on the tomb are no less interesting, these representing the fights the lord was part of.
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Right next to the tomb, there is the monastery that uses the name of the lord which was raised not much after Michael the Brave lost his life on this territory, being assasinated.
Just as in the case of the tomb, the monastery didn't look like this from the beginning, but got a major renovation in 2002 making it very similar to the monastery from Bucharest that was raised by Michael the Brave himself, considering it the best honour that could be brought to the man who literally created the country we still have in 2024, paying with his own life to make it possible.
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There's not much to be said of the monastery, as this one comes with paintings drawn following a Neo-Byzantine style, everything being summarised in a rectangular shape, features which are very common for the orthodox churches from Romania.
The main entrance is placed on the West side of the building, just above of it being the bell tower which is another feature of the classic churches from this part of Europe.
In fact, we weren't here seeking less common churches and monasteries of Romania, but to take a break from daily routines and other aspects of life that kept our hearts too heavy lately. However, we ended up being well rewarded with learning a bit more about the past of our home country, even getting to sit steps away from the body of the man who built this country.
Oh, and just like in the case of my previous post from Romania Roadtrip 2023, there was no chance to step away before meeting a cat and spending some good time together too.
Once a cat mom, always a cat mom.
Mihai Vodă Monastery and His Graveyard are located 3 km away from Turda, in the place called Campia Turzii, and it can be reached by following the European road E81 until you reach Mihai Viteazu village near the city of Turda, then make it on 161B until you meet your destination.
Other articles from my Romania Tour 2023:
- The Blue Lagoon of Cluj (Laguna Albastră)
- Ciucaș Waterfall... or beer? (Cascada Ciucaș)
- The Sequoia Tree from Romania
- Șapte culori ale Pământului (The 7 Colors of the Earth, Romania)
- Lacul Tarzan (Tarzan Lake of Romania)
- Gresiile de pe Stânca Dracului (The Devil's Rock)
- Cetatea Trascăului (Trascău Fortress)
- Grădina Zmeilor (The Garden of Kites)
- Tarnița Lake and Tarnița Dam
- Piatra Corbilor (The Raven Stone)
- Mihai Vodă Monastery and His Graveyard
more coming soon...
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 700+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.
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