I wonder if John Lennon could possibly have imagined that, 35 years on from his demise, Romanians would be dancing to Imagine. Not as improbable as the fact that Yoko is still putting out videos with the Plastic Ono Band – see Bad Dancer on You Tube for example. However, a little more in Iasi before I must dash – it rhymes because you pronounce it Yash! The Traian Grand Hotel also has a ‘London Pub’, whose menu dares to travesty our own dear Queen.  They must all still be Commies! I awoke to a police car parking outside my hotel window, reminding me that this is only a few miles from the border with the independent Republic of Moldova, a former Soviet state. This is distinct from Moldavia (not the fictitious country featured in Dynasty), which the Romanians like to confuse us further by calling Moldova. The whole lot was part of what became Greater Romania between 1862 and 1940, and that’s why my friend in Bucharest is one of many who would like it back. This guy, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, rendered in bronze – also outside my bedroom window – was the man credited with unifying Romania, by getting himself elected Prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859, a de facto Romania eventually recognised by the Ottoman Sultan in 1861. Romania became a kingdom independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1881. It gained Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania in the Treaty of Bucharest in 1916. The above statue had been popularly inaugurated here in 1912. The Cuza guy did a Henry VIII and expropriated the monasteries’ rich landholdings, some quarter of the whole country, without compensation. He also introduced land reform for the peasants, but was forced to compromise by the Conservatives – nothing new here then – which meant that many ended up with too little land to work, so sold it off, a bit like the effect of Right to Buy in the UK. But it is interesting that this anti-clericalism was popular 150 years ago, because you wouldn’t know it today. People still ritually cross themselves when passing a monastery – even young guys on the tram – which makes for pretty energetic use of the arm given how many monasteries there are, a kind of proto-pilates. Perhaps pilates originated with Pontius’ vigorous hand-washing. This is the Bolla Monastery, one of 47 in Iasi. There is restoration work going on here, as in many of the churches I have seen. Another notable fact is that the Church is also benefiting from Romania’s current building boom. Unlike Britain, where churches are largely heritage icons and difficult to maintain given dwindling congregations, here they are continuing to build churches all over the place. This one is going up in Tarau, near the foot of the Bicaz Gorge. So people are pretty religious, some 90 per cent Orthodox, similar to the 92 per cent of Norwegians willing to pay their church tithes, albeit to the Presbyterians there, which they would be entitled to opt out of, much like unions’ political levy. I was struck by the conformism in Norway, to things like speed limits and rules of the road, and strangely there is some of that here too, despite the 10 per cent of crazies on the road. Romanians are even more committed to pedestrian supremacy at zebra crossings than the Brits, with people stepping out into moving traffic and daring cars not to stop. I wonder whether it is religion which breeds that conformity, or the police who ran the state up until 25 years ago. People traditionally divide into two camps, those who feel reassured by the presence of police and those who feel threatened. In communist Romania, I believe the latter were in the majority. The family who had kindly given sanctuary to me in Constanta had also taken in a Romanian who had attached himself to me. We had gone for a swim at the town beach our first afternoon and, since I had swam for a while, this chump had reported me drowned. So when I eventually found my way back to their home, it was swarming with police, the last thing my kind hosts deserved. As a wayward student, I could understand a little of their justifiable paranoia. And the Romanians love the EU. The EU flag is flying everywhere, even on this guy’s pretty basic shack.I guess the spirit of John Lennon lives on, even here in the Bicaz Gorge, but so too does the rampant commercialism which now blights virtually every natural phenomenon. I never quite understood why breathtaking scenery should logically lead to buying a garden gnome.                                            So when I arrived at the head of the valley, at Lac Rosu, to find more of this tat – cheap stalls, cafes and pensions, my heart sank. But actually the new Hotel and Restaurant Lac Rosu has over an acre of its own manicured grounds, away from the madding crowd and, with the coach tours gone, I had the lakeside walk virtually to myself this evening. In the restaurant, tricked out as for a Hollywood wedding, the next table was taken by six Israelis and their Jewish Romanian tour guide. I wanted to ask them if they were descendants of the many thousand Jews sold to Israel – at a steep rate card reflecting employability – by Ceasescu, but I didn’t want to intrude upon their happy wanderings. This is a story with complex ethics which needs telling, but tonight was not the time. Indeed, the whole panoply of ethnic tensions is a can of worms which needs opening later. On my first visit to Romanian mountains – I have wracked what is left of my brains but cannot identify exactly where – I arrived on a truck in a village which nearly all turned out to see the first man over six feet with blonde hair to tread those streets. (Obviously the Germans had not got this far). I went to the local cafe bar and ordered trout. For someone brought up on fish fingers and institutional fare, the fish they had obviously sent someone out to catch, was one of the best things I had then ever tasted. In memoriam,  I ordered trout tonight. It was OK, but not quite in the same league. The contemporary obsession with endless choice inevitably reduces each item to something below par. As the minimalist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said: “Less is more”. He also said “God is in the details” – and I shall be seeing a lot more of the details of His work tomorrow.