The symposium in Romania, the first three days.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, the agenda of the days went on in a similar way. In the morning starting at nine o’clock we got lectures on different aspects of mils. The conference room could easily hold all participants. The technical equipment was superb. Not to forget the coffee in between the speeches. Everything went smoothly, the Romanian way. A little informal. But isn’t there a saying? When in Romania act like the Romanians. I still have to see the first signs of stress with these “organised” guys. Let’s put it this way: the atmosphere is great. The subjects passing the revue, were really interesting. Speakers from Holland, Turkey, Canada, France, Ukraine talked about different regions of our world, of course bringing different aspects of mills to our attention.
Where would you find information on prayerwheels from Buthan driven with renewable energy, unless you met someone from Japan who would bring you up to date on that subject.
Another interesting talk went on about Californian mills from the missions. More news on tidal mills in the Netherlands. A subject we always look forward too, as in Belgium we have one of the few tidal mills that is still functoning.
Watermills in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, was also very interesting, as these parts of the world are still not quite explored by people from Western Europe.
Lunch was served on the terrace of a restaurant in the Open Air museum. The afternoons everybody was free to explore the Astra Open Air Museum, which houses a big collection of mills. Windmills, watermills, fulling mills, and all kinds of “things” driven by waterwheels.
I never saw a horse mill, of the size they have over here. The mills and houses were brought over here, purely for demonstration purposes, not to work again. This can look a little odd as there are a few boatmills in the museum, not on a stream.
