Chisinau is not a tourist city and our hotel wasn’t really designed for tourists which is probably why we enjoyed its weirdness so much.
Chisinau hotel
The food is not very European it all has a taste we struggled to identify then we realised it was dill. It is everywhere, draped on your meat or fish or hidden in the sauce. There is no escape.
Dill with everything!
Without a long list of must do sights it was a pleasure just to wander the streets looking at whatever seemed interesting.
Although you had to look carefully as you walk. The pavements are in very bad condition.
Walking round Chisinau
A twenty minute walk (forty five if you are foolish enough to believe Google Maps) and next to the main cemetery is the War Memorial, a huge 25 metre high pyramid of five stylised rifles.
A row of sculptures show what happened in each year Moldova was involved in the war. There is one for every year between 1941 and 1945 with an eternal flame in the middle.
Two soldiers stand guard and do a goose step changing of the guard each hour. It was quite hard to find this place Google thinks it is in Turkish Embassy – it isn’t!
The Ciuflea Orthodox Monastery dedicated to Saint Theodore.
The most beautiful building in Chisinau. If anywhere were to make me religious it would be here.
The building is simply stunning and the atmosphere is so peaceful I envied the head-scarfed women attending to the candles.
The Piata Centrala is a real local market, very crowded and selling everything you could possibly want except for a souvenir.
A short drive out of Chisinau is the Milestri Mici Winery. Outside there is both a red and a white “wine” fountain.
You can be driven through the miles of underground streets named after wines and have a wine tasting afterwards. They give you a lot of wine but not long to drink it. You do leave happier than when you arrived!
