In the mountains north and east of Chişinău are four exceedingly scenic monasteries: Capriăna, Condrița (who puts a diacritic on ‘t’?), Curchi, and Orheiul Vechi. My favorite is the last one, it sits on the edge of a cliff and has a cave underneath that opens to the wall of the cliff. The weekend before…

I am in Chișinău, the capital of Moldova. This country is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. It was one of tge Soviet republics, then named Moldavia, and today is a mix of a historical downtown, Soviet-style suburbs, and a few modern buildings. It’s small, hilly, very pleasant and relaxed, and not choked with traffic. It…