Day trip to Ramet

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Ramet Monastery
Ramet Monastery | By Ovidiu Borlean under Creative Commons license
Ramet Mountains
Ramet Mountains | By Sergiu Bacioiu under Creative Commons license
Ramet Monastery
Ramet Monastery | Wikipedia under Creative Commons license
Ramet Mountains
Ramet Mountains | By Sergiu Bacioiu under Creative Commons license

A triangle of thirteen villages forms the commune of Ramet, a rather scarcely populated rural area located in the northern half of Alba County, Transylvania. While the less than six hundred inhabitants of the area survive mainly off agriculture, the place is highly attractive for visitors thanks to its beautiful monastery – as old as the village of Ramet itself – and its breathtaking landscapes, carefully preserved within no less than five natural parks: the Ramet Gorges, the Prav Gorges, the Piatra Baltii Gorges (the “Pond Cliff” Gorges), the Manastirii Gorges (the “Monastery” Gorges), and a natural reserve called “Vanatarile Ponorului” (the “Edges of the Chasm”), which stands at the confluence of three large valleys.

Ramet Monastery

The monastery, located right at the starting point of the Ramet Gorges, is a XIV century historical monument comprising an Orthodox church and a school turned museum, which serves as conclusive evidence that, in the early Middle Ages, education was almost exclusively the domain of organized religion. The small stone church, guarded only by flimsy-looking walls, is dedicated to the Nativity of Mary and the Healing Fount, an eastern orthodox holiday observed on the first Friday after Easter. Well hidden in the Trascau Mountains, the monastery has had its share of troubled history, but has remained a stronghold of orthodoxy throughout it all, thanks, to a large extent, to the involvement of prominent Transylvanian or Wallachian princes such as Matthias Corvinus, Radu the Black, and Michael the Brave. These generous rulers repaired and rebuilt the church after the repeated destructions suffered either at the hands of foreign invaders or even ordered by the local authorities as part of the reprisal against the Revolt of Horea, Closca, and Crisan. However, the most important contribution to the church as it stands now came from the Alba Iulia Bishop Emilian Birdas, who saved the old church from ruin by adding another two meters to its height and built a new place of worship, under the patronage of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, within the same complex, naming it the Cathedral of the Apuseni Mountains.

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