a visit to Moldova

I hung around in Sofia for a couple more days, as I enjoyed the vibe in the hostel and was having some interesting conversations with fellow travellers there - and it was cheap!  But then I started to feel guilty that I wasn't 'achieving' anything, and so I decided to pay a visit to Moldova.  This involved an overnight bus from Sofia to Bucharest, a taxi across the city to a different bus station, and then an all-day trip to the capital, Chisinau.  With a half-hour walk at each end, which reminded me again that I really have brought too much stuff with me.

I really hadn't a clue what to expect of Chisinau, but I liked the feel of the place, and the hostel was nice, so when I woke the first morning I asked to extend my stay.

It was a relaxed kind of place, with virtually no tourists (nearly all of the other guests at the hostel were Ukrainians or Russians - there to avoid the war - and one American wanting to go and support the Ukrainians), and it was easy to walk around the city to see what few sights there were (cathedral, churches and monastery with amazing frescoes covering their interiors, parks, and a few Soviet era remnants) and to appreciate the decaying 19th century architecture.

But as with Sofia, I had as much pleasure from my interactions with other people as I had from visiting the sights.  In this case partly from the guest house manager, from his tales of his twenty years in the US military (including some years working in intelligence, where one exercise they did was to model a theoretical invasion of Ukraine by Russia!!), to his family situation (one daughter serving a twenty-year spell in prison following her refusal to testify against her boyfriend who had killed their son...) but there were some other interesting characters there too.  I'm not really sure how well I'd fit in now with 'regular' people, but these guys all seemed to enjoy my company.

I did make a trip out to the Cricova wine estate - with its 120km of underground tunnels to store both barrels and bottles of wine, and I opted to do a wine tasting which was enjoyable but I have to admit that I cannot remember my journey back to my hostel!

Just outside of the older centre were many Soviet era buildings, particularly the rather unattractive apartment blocks.  However, as in Sofia, these superficially unattractive blocks were all surrounded by tree-lined paths, had childrens' playgrounds in spaces between them, and a pair of park benches by each back entrance which seemed to be a socialising place for some of the older residents.  Clear evidence that the needs of the population were taken into account when they were designed.

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