Maramures

We had Jane totally confused today! She had no clue where we were or where we wanted to go. If you recall, Jane is the name we have given our GPS unit, which unfortunately only has major cities and roads for Romania. So we had to travel the old-fashioned way, with a map and reading road signs!

The Romanian landscape is amazing. We drove through rolling hills, green fields and little towns and villages, on very bumpy roads which we occasionally shared with horse carts! Some houses in the villages had tiles stuck to the outside, making colourful patterns.

We drove over a mountain in the Carpathian range and our ears were popping as we descended on the other side. At one hairpin bend we noticed shepherds herding their flock home, then the road took us through a dense forest. It was all very picturesque.

We stopped in Sapanta, which is a small village known for its “merry cemetery”. The crosses on the graves are painted with little scenes, and some give hints of the deceased’s occupation, such as horses for farmer or a saw for carpenter, or a woman at a stove for house wife, etc.

We walked through the cemetery for a while and tried to guess at the different occupations and figure out how old some of the people had been when they died. It was neat, in a morbid sort of way. We said a prayer for them all before we left.

It was very interesting to see in every village that many women were wearing their traditional skirts and blouses, with scarves covering their hair. And many men wore traditional vests and hats. The houses had gated front yards and people were sitting outside chatting, possibly gossiping, and enjoying the beautiful day. Every once in a while we saw an old man taking his cow for a walk along the road too! You definitely got the feel of rural communities and the farming life.

NM