Tag Archives: historic

Places

Inside the fortifications of St. Margaret’s Church in Medias

Built in 1488, St. Margaret’s Church in Medias, Romania, is the town’s most recognizable landmark, thanks to its leaning clock tower, which can be seen from miles away. Its tower dates from 1460, and left its originally vertical position due to some soil shifting. The photos shown below are from the church’s interior courtyard, inside its fortified walls.

A primary school is housed in its courtyard. I attended that school as a child, and have fond memories of playing in the courtyard, underneath a chestnut tree which is still there today.

Three other landmarks are inside the courtyard:

  • The birthplace of S. L. Roth, one of the town’s most famous citizens
  • Turnul Funarilor (the Rope-Makers’ Tower)
  • A chapel with beautiful frescoes (located outside the church, inside one of the defense towers) — I plan to photograph it in the future, but you can see it from the outside in one of the photos below.

This is the main passageway that leads into the interior courtyard.

This is Turnul Funarilor (Rope-Makers’ Tower) and S. L. Roth’s place of birth (next to the tower).  Continue reading →

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Places

Medias from above

During yesterday’s morning walk through the town, I got access to the St. Margaret’s church bell tower for a few minutes, and ran up to take a few photos of the historic district from above. I hope to be able to return to the tower at some point in the near future so I can take more photos.

Here you can see the King Ferdinand Piazza in the background.

This is the church’s interior courtyard, where I went to school as a child.

This is Str. Johannes Honterus. I’d run up the street toward the school every morning, almost late because I took too long to eat my breakfast.

I might have gone to the S. L. Roth high school, which you can see here, but instead moved to Cluj, then to the United States. And now I’m back in my old home town. Life’s little twists and turns are pretty interesting, aren’t they?

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Places

A morning walk through Medias

The weather was lovely this morning, so Ligia and I took a walk through the city, in its historic district, which is where we also happen to live.

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Places

The fortified church in Biertan

The village of Biertan has one of the most renowned fortified churches in Transilvania, Romania. Built between 1493 and 1522, over the site of a previous church, it is contained within two concentric fortified walls, with seven towers and two bastions.

The village itself has maintained its medieval character: the two roads that lead into it are the same they’ve always been; most of the houses, particularly in the village center, still have the same architecture, and you’ll be hardpressed to find but a few modern buildings there.

You get to it by driving through gentle rolling hills and crop fields. Forgotten by time (and by modern real estate development), it’s as if you’re going back through time.

The fortified church stands in the geographical center of the village, right next to the spacious, riverstone-paved village square.

It’s a good idea to take a walk around the outer fortified wall before going in, to get a sense of the place and its layout.

The current entrance into the fortified walls is through an arched passageway with a long row of steps up the hill, which leads inside the inner courtyard.

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Places

The John Douglass Brown House in Alexandria

The John Douglass Brown House stands apart from the rest of the houses you see in Alexandria because of the choice of its building material: wood. (Most of the houses in that part of the town are brick.) The simple, rustic architecture talks of an early, more modest beginning as a farmhouse, not a townhome for a wealthy trader, like the rest of the places around it.

Built in the 1700s, the house was owned and occupied by the descendants of the John Douglass Brown and Mary Goulding Gretter from 1816 until the 1970s-80s. When we visited it (it’s not open to the public), not knowing anything about it, we realized something was different nonetheless, and began to look at its exterior more closely.

The neighbors came out, and we talked to them. They graciously offered to introduce us to its current owner, Mr. Charles J. Reeder, who couldn’t have been nicer. We got to talking, and asked if we could come inside the interior courtyard to photograph it. He allowed us in.

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