Breb, Romania

The village of Breb, Maramures is a popular tourist destination for a reason. A lot of the old houses here have been preserved and converted to pensiunea (bed and breakfasts). Many of them have elaborate oaken gates and fences on the front. They're called poartă maramureșeană, which would translate to Maramures gates. I've seen dozens of them now and they're mind boggling. Some of them have large chains hanging from the front, but the chain links are all made of wood.

At my pensiune, there is the original older house in the back garden and a modern new building in the front. I booked at the last minute so I'm on the top floor of the new building. No complaints here as the old building is reported to be very creaky. The couple that runs the place are super nice and work all day. Breakfast is included and a huge group dinner is available for a small fee. They leave polinka out in the afternoon and evening for free and then provide wine at dinner also. I think it's $62 US/day for everything.

I'm the only English speaker here which makes things a little difficult but I'm getting by. Romanians come here for a weekend getaway and of course there's the requisite German and French tourists. I ate breakfast yesterday with a retired French couple and the man was from Toulon, one of my favorite French cities.

Dinner last night was a little more awkward as I was one of about 17 people and the only solo traveler and only English speaker. The two nice Romanian couples I sat with from Ploiesti did their best to communicate with me.

In a very strange coincidence, just hours after that, my uncle Bob sent me a few articles about an American Air Force B-24 gunner who was shot down and crashed in Ploesti on the property of a Romanian princess towards the end of World War 2. I'd never heard of the city! My father and uncles are from Geneseo, Illinois and Donald Gene Wright, the gunner, was also from there. Earlier in the day I had mentioned to my family that I'm in northern Romania. Ploiesti is in the south.

Donald Wright credits a Romanian princess named Catherine Caradja, the "Angel of Ploiesti " for saving his life and the lives of his fellow airmen. She insisted that they be treated well in the Nazi camp. She was apparently anti-nazi even though the Romanians had sided with the Nazis. Not long after that, Romania switched sides because they saw the writing on the wall. Wright was released, spent a two week leave in Geneseo, and then was sent back to war. He lived to tell the tale.

There's a famous steam-powered train line (Mocăniță) over an hour from here. It goes up into the mountains into a logging region. I tried to buy tickets online but their website was crap and I couldn't do it. On a whim, I drove all the way there to see if I could catch a train but they were sold out. So I went to the Borsana monastery on the way back. That made the long drive worth it.

Up here, the Romanian farmers still stack their hay in the centuries old fashion. They're very picturesque. The other villages along the road are not much to look at but the countryside is beautiful. Even though the roads are in perfect shape, they are very narrow and I'm averaging about 35 miles an hour along the highways. There's just no room for parking and there's no shoulder. So people park on the road or just stop to chat, deliver goods, or pick flowers.

Today I'm actually going to take a vacation day and just chill out and walk around the village: no buses, no trains, no driving.

The old wooden church in town is supposed to have the oldest church spire in Romania. A lot of men work in the lumber industry here. Life moves pretty slowly. Even though a lot of people have converted their houses to the pensiunae, a lot more haven't. They might have chickens, cows, horses, or sheep in their yard. This is exactly what I was hoping for, because tomorrow I head to Cluj, the second largest city in Romania. Sometimes it's nice to step back in time.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/c7TngDMunC1kLpfv9

For more on the angel of Ploiesti, see
Catherine Caradja - Wikipedia https://share.google/mcoaARslZQSKuLXIxRead more