Moldovan Sights

The sights along the road from Odessa to Chisinau were interesting. The road was this terrible bumpy mess that gave Lilia a headache. I'm sure Sasha was going crazy as well because he's an avid smoker, and we only took a couple of breaks along the 5 hour drive. I took these rest stops as an opportunity to photograph the countryside.

There is a clear, visceral difference between the standard of living in Ukraine versus Moldova. The homes slowly turned into shacks... the road got worse and worse... and the churches changed from Orthodox to Catholic Cathedrals.

When we got to Chisinau, there were a couple of things that shocked our Ukrainian friends. 1- the currency of Moldovan leis was equivalent to the Ukrainian gryvna. They were pretty disappointed! 2- the downtown was quite nice. There were a variety of stores, fancy hotels, and ethnic restaurants.

However, it was clear by the end of our 3-day visit that the downtown was really quite limited. It was maybe 10 square blocks of 'niceness' and we had pretty much covered ALL of it. More people spoke English in Chisinau- but perhaps because it is the capital of the country, and we were seeing the best and most educated. People were really, very kind and unpretentious.

One of the 'fun' things: their police cars. They were so hilariously old!

The main sights in the town included a gorgeous cathedral located in their main square, a beautiful park in their city center. There were statues of their leaders and numerous monuments.

More than anything, we enjoyed eating some meals with our friends. The first night, we had some local Moldovian fare. There was some polenta with sheep's milk cheese - this dish was called "Mamalyga". (The cheese was rather pungent, and I don't think I'll be ordering that dish again) We also had baked fish, and pork, calamari and potato fritters. All pretty decent stuff.

The next day, Arun and I had some sushi at a very fancy restaurant. Quite good.

And for dinner we had Italian. And that was the end of the eating marathon for me. I'm never having that ravioli again!

I'll end on a last couple of pictures from Chisinau: the Triumphal Arch and a sunset as we left Moldova and returned to Odessa.