Maramures

From here on we drove into the Romanian countryside. Our first destination was the Maramures - a region of Romania which has managed to stick to its traditions pretty well (in spite of some noveau rich who are unfortunately making their mark with their big fancy villas).

It's a lovely, quaint region of wooden churches, old farms, traditional costumes, friendly people and lovely scenery (dotted with haystacks).



The drive took us through winding mountain roads (kind of reminded me of the Alp Maritimes...), and into a lovely valley taking us past lovely, picturesque villages. It was like being taken back 100 years in time - people still use horse & cart to bring the hay back from the fields (although admittedly that seems to be the case everywhere in Romania!). Eventually we reached the main town of the region - Sighetui Marmatiei. After booking a hotel room, we set out to explore the area.

Our first stop was "Fosta Inchisoare de la Sighet et Muzeul victimelor totalitarismului" (bit of a mouthful, that). Basically it's a museum dedicated to victims of the communist regime (the building used to be a political prison). Interesting place, very well presented - wish I understood more Romanian though (a lot of the material wasn't translated...)!



After this, we drove down to Sapina, which is famous for its "happy cemetery". Basically the local grave maker has a very characteristic way of making graves - each blue wooden tombstone is decorated with a picture from its owner's life, as well as some witty text (well, it's obviously in Romanian, so we have to assume that is the case!) describing what the deceased had been up to in his life. It's a unique and wonderful place, I've never seen anything like it anywhere else! We also visited an under-construction monastery - with a ridiculously high wooden church (75 meters!)



We finished off the day with some leisurly driving through the lovely countryside - even stumbling onto a village fare at one point. After having a dinner in a nice (if somewhat touristy) restaurant back in town, we went to sleep, after a great day!





On Sunday, we continued touring around the countryside. The plan was to visit some of the wooden churches the region is famous for, which turned out to be a bit difficult since everybody was at mass (this being Sunday) - and unfortunately most of the churches were closed in the afternoon (looks like they really do rest on Sunday in this part of the world...). At the same time, it was great to see everybody walking down to mass wearing their traditional dresses (and I do mean everybody...) - we felt a bit alien in our shorts and t-shirts! We did manage to visit one old church on the inside, and were treated to some great artwork on the walls in the church...



As much as we loved the region, with its friendly people, we decided to head towards Bucovine in the afternoon - since we were quite pressed for time...