Into Romania
We were expecting to be on the train at this time today on our way to Cluj Napoca, Romania. However, Lesson Number ??: Don’t trust the posted timetables in the train station. The timetable said 10:05, but we found out this morning that the next train to Cluj would leave at 16:22. So, we’ve been killing time today in Sighetu Marmatiei — reading, writing, drinking tea/pop, visiting the market, having lunch and walking around town a bit more.
We entered Romania on Sunday and stayed two nights in Baia Mare. Monday we took a bus to Surdesti, where we saw two towering, wooden churches. The church in Surdesti is 72 meters high and is considered the tallest wooden structure in Europe — if not the world. The wooden church in Plopis, just 2 km down the road, isn’t as tall but just as impressive. The bus schedule back to Baia Mare didn’t work with our schedule, so we ended up walking back into town. It was a nice day, so we didn’t mind the walk. We walked quite a while with an old man and his horse and wagon. He would catch up to us on the downhills when his horse would break into a trot, and we would catch up to him on the uphills when he would walk alongside his horse, letting him stop for occasional breaks. Despite greeting him with “Buna Ziua,” he recognized that we were not from the area, and said something about “..Europa.” Judging by the way he said it, we think he might have told us that we were a long ways from Europe. Indeed. We were a long ways from the “Europe” we had been visiting.
On Tuesday we took the train to Sighetu Marmatiei, in the northern Romaian, Maramures region. We were planning on staying two nights here, and taking a day trip to Sapanta (not being able to type the special characters on this keyboard, say SA PIN TSA) on Wednesday. We never made it Sapanta, but we spent two wonderful days in the more remote and less touristy village of Breb. At Breb we walked the muddy streets, were introduced by a very friendly and knowledgable woman named Lise — who speaks English, French and Romanian — to many smiling villagers, watched two of the women washing rugs and blankets in the stream running through town, tasted the strong, plum brandy called Horinca and saw how they made it, rode in a small, packed truck with 12 other villagers to the market in nearby Ocna Sugatag, walked back to Breb through hayfields dotted with “old-time” haystacks and stayed at a wonderful pension called Pensiunea Lucia.
We rode a minibus back to Sighet this morning, and — hopefully — we’ll be leaving shortly via train to Cluj Napoca.
More later,
Tim
Tags: Europe, Romania
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