Has anyone been to Iași and maybe want to share something, anything? I am considering spending a day there on the way elsewhere.
And yes, I did search Iași on the forum. No first hand accounts in the last nearly 10 years. The name only come up 29 times in the forum over 15 years.
I will be visiting Iasi this September. I know of someone from a different travel forum who was there a year or so ago when she visited the painted monasteries and wooden churches in Romania. Per what this other person saw and enjoyed, we plan on visiting the Biserica Trei Ierarchi (Church of the Three Hierarchs), the ethnography museum, and the Museum of Art. There are also 3 hilltop monasteries in the Nicolina Quarter. We are spending 2 nights here.
According to my guidebook, Iasi is supposed to be one of Romania's most appealing destinations, the region's cultural capital, and has numerous churches and monasteries.
I hope this helps.
kmkwoo, that helps a lot. I am going there to catch a flight, but thought maybe I would be cheating myself if I didnt stay at least a day.
The place in anglophone historiography is spelled with a "J" as one would find in modern European diplomatic history , the Treaty of Jassy. If you have the opportunity or are close by, go there, period. I would.
Fred, I always appreciate your history lessons, but you will forgive me if I call the city by its current proper name.
@ Mr E....Likewise. I call the city by its current name too. This is true story. A couple of years ago met a young Romanian (guy) in SF who had attended school in Iasi, had great discussions with him, history obviously pertaining to modern Romania, told him what the city was called in English historically.
The current names are shown on English language maps and obviously, the current name of Iasi is there.
I took a brief day trip to Iasi (from Suceava) in 2015. I must say that it was not as physically attractive as many of the other places I visited in Romania that year. The NYTimes had an article about the city back in 2003, It seems Ceausescu wiped out a great many historic buildings there.
The city had a significant Jewish population in the nineteenth century and was the location of the world's first Yiddish theatre, founded in 1876. One synagogue--the Great Synagogue--remains, the other 126 having been destroyed during the war.
At the time of the NYTimes article, the city had an ethnographic museum in the Palace of Culture. I was aware of a botanical garden but ran out of time before getting out there.
I believe the major tourist targets in that part of Romania (Bucovina) are the painted monasteries, which are quite special. I don't remember which ones I saw on my trip from Suceava, but I chose the Humor Monastery randomly and Google gave me a driving-time estimate of 2 hr. 20 min. from Iasi.
My big decision will be if I spend the time there or on the other side of the border. I am beginning to think, the other side of the border. But both are good options, I just have limited time.
@ Mr E....My compliments on your desire, guts, focus and determination past and present to visit these historical as well as cultural cities in what is definitely eastern Europe, ie those in the Balkans and in the Ukraine. Twenty years ago my good friend in Ireland did just that flying also solo to the Ukraine from Ireland or London (forgot which?) on Ryan for what he called "the price of fish and chips."
First Iasi and the destinations in Ukraine are a pretty easy reach for me. Direct flights to Iasi from Vienna, or one change in Bucharest to reach Iasi. The two stops in Ukraine are about 40 and 70km across the Romanian border in a US State Department Level 3 region of Ukraine that hasn’t seen much if any of the destruction of the war. Probably safer than Hackensack, NJ. So, a no brainer.
Fred let’s see if I can say this eloquently enough to make a point and not start a fire storm.
I did a lot of the usual. Not in a lot of depth I do admit. Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Vienna as examples. I learned a lot, I enjoyed a lot.
After a while the was some repetition of what I discovered. I am an architect so while I know the difference between the Gothic found in Paris and the Gothic found in London, for gothic sakes its still Western Gothic. I got a little bored.
Then I ended up in Budapest 20+ years ago, literally without plan or reason. Even Budapest is substantially more Western than Eastern and still I noticed the differences and my interest got peeked. Okay, this was good, but what is the next step? If memory serves me correctly it Romania. But even Romania is only two steps to the East from Budapest, Bulgaria was four, Ukraine six steps.
Where in Western Europe I was looking for subtle differences to keep my interest, in Ukraine and Bulgaria and Albania I was looking for subtle connections to the West. Not just architecture, but culture, manners food, personal interactions, toilets (hey, ya gotta notice).
I also discovered that the European history I learned in school missed half of Europe. How can that be? That is coming back to haunt the world today. People, read or better yet, go. Try to understand. You have to. Millions of lives are at stake.
Then there is the purity of tourism. Seeing things as they would be if tourists did not disrupt the culture. Those days are over in every major city in Western Europe, but those days still exist in a lot of Easter Europe. I call it the back doors to Europe, but to be honest the really aren’t the back doors to the tourist ridden Europe, they are just under discovered parts of the world. I laugh when people go to Croatia and then lament they wish they had come before it was “discovered” and so I suggest Montenegro or Albania and I get, “why would I want to go there”. Quit lamenting, you don’t deserve the emotion.
@ Mr E.....Your points are well taken. Plus being accurate too. Like you I only learned half of Europe too in school . Courses on east-central Europe and eastern Europe / Balkans were specialised upper division history classes, ie, electives unless one intended to specialise in that region and pursue it in grad school.
Like you I get those words ," why would you want to go there (or again)?" too , seldom but still. A pity , isn't it? I have regrets too on not having seen places earlier at the time the possibilities availed themselves, eg, Lviv, Spandau, Flensburg, Plzen (CZ)
