A monastery and a castle

Just outside the city of Roman there is a monastery and a castle. The castle was built by a family the family that owns the land. They built the castle in 1880 to replace the house that they had used. They also built a church for the family to use. The church became a monastery. My hosts for the day took me to this place and we had a wonderful time. We ate lunch at the monastery and had the food that they serve to the monks and nuns. The food was vegetarian and it was explained that no meat has been eaten at this monastery for more than 300 years. The food as excellent, especially since it all was picked from the monastery's garden. The head nun, who runs the place sat with us as we ate and talked a little about the history of the place and how it was run. After lunch another nun took us on a tour of the monastery and castle. What an amazing place. We not only went into the big church but also the winter church (because the big church is too cold in the winter for services) but we were able to see them actually painting the inside of the winter church. What a beautiful place. Now you are asking, "Why no pictures?" right? Well my hosts took a video and will give me a copy so then I will share it with you. After the two churches we were allowed to go inside the work areas and see where the nuns sew and knit and paint eggs and also paint the icons for the church. What an amazing insight into the daily running of a monastery. After the monastery we visited the castle. It was used for many years as a home for abandoned children. The inside is pretty run down but still with a little imagination you can visualize what a beautiful place it was. What an amazing afternoon I had today. I hope you that read this can have half as nice a day as I had today.

See ya