Romania: Maramureş to Hungary

Now in the heart of Maramureş we were lucky enough to be cycling through a string of villages on a Sunday. Crowds poured out of the Greco-Catholic churches in their sunday best: Colourful skirts and headscarves for women and loose white shirts and vests for men. On this Sunday we didn't see a single horse-and-cart, and no one was working in the fields.

Sunday parade

Even the younger generation adhered to the dress code


Villagers in their Sunday best

Greco-Catholic Church

Monastery in Barsana, a popular pilgrimage site

Pot tree of unknown significance

A tourist highlight of Maramureş is the Merry Cemetery. In the 1960s, the local grave builder started creating humourous headstones that told amusing stories about the deceased in poetry and pictures. Unfortunately there were no translations so we missed the poetry, but the pictures were great.

Merry Cemetery headstone

Maramureş is a truly strange region. It is separated from the rest of Romania by a mountain range and hasn't really caught up to the 21st century (or even the 20th). Even the main highway to the west has sections of cobblestone. By now we were cycling into a strong westerly headwind. We ascended the pass through a beautiful forest and found ourselves battling to stay upright in the gusts on the way down. The wind was so strong at times that we were pedalling downhill at 12-13km/h! After a hard day we stopped at a thermal spring hotel.

Cows outside the thermal hotel

From there we had another couple of days of headwind through Satu Mare to the Hungarian border. We were happy to leave Romania. It was a fascinating country but years of communism and poverty have taken their toll on the spirit of the people. We had many good experiences but the majority of the people we met were unhappy to see us and were unwilling to help us when we asked. The contrast with Hungary was apparent immediately.