The Merry Cemetery.

I woke very early and while I would have preferred to sleep longer I was rewarded with a very pretty sunrise.

We left Oradea this morning and drove north to the Maramureș region. It is a geographical, historical and cultural region in northern Romania and western Ukraine. It is situated in the northeastern Carpathian mountains. Obviously we stayed in Romania. We were close enough for a part of our trip to see the Tisza river which in that area forms the border. (Close enough that Mac's phone received the "Welcome to Ukraine" message from his mobile phone provider!). The Ukrainian countryside was visible for quite a while. While there hasn't been bombing within 100km of the border with Hungary it must be stressful for those who still live there.

Our first major stop was at Săpânța the village that is home to The Merry Cemetery. It is famous for its brightly coloured tombstones which are painted, carved and have a poem telling of the people who are buried there in addition to scenes from their lives.

It really was an amazing place. Some of the 'poems' are quite sad, some quirky. It's fascinating really. While I was waiting for the others to wake up this morning, I read several articles about the cemetery. I also read many translations of the words written on some of the crosses. What an unusual cemetery. This is one of the articles I read. https://romaniatourism.com/press-sapanta-maramu…

Săpânța also has one of the wooden churches the Maramureș region is famous for, so we then visited it before heading to our hotel.

We are staying in Baia Mare for 2 nights, so on the way there we stopped at Deseşti to see another wooden churches. We only knew of one there by a pretty cemetery. We saw a wooden church, stopped and looked but there was no cemetery so thought maybe there was another. So we looked about and found it just as the thunder and rain started. Patty and I still went to check it out but unfortunately the church was already closed for the day. It was about 5pm.
We headed to our hotel and the descent from the mountains was full of twists and turns the whole way. An incredibly windy road that seemed to go on and on.

It was a long but fascinating day. We were surprised how good the roads were and how prosperous many of the villages looked. We expected dreadful roads and much poorer villages. Not everyone is well off but the number of impressive looking homes was a surprise.

Baia Mare is the major city in the region. Quite a few locals were out watching the Romania vs Slovakia Euro 2024 soccer game as we went out for dinner.Les mer