It was a bit of a rushed morning because breakfast wasn't available until half an hour before we had to leave. I got up and had a quick shower and packed up before heading down. Breakfast was in this very grand room with high ceilings and a chandelier. I'm starting to get lazy with taking photos unfortunately, and didn't think to get a photo of it. It must've been quite the building when it was new.
I ran to buy a bottle of water from the supermarket in the middle of breakfast since I was out and when I came back put my purse on the back of the chair. When I left I accidentally forgot it there! Luckily someone had turned it into reception and I realized i didn't have it right when we got out the door to catch the tram back to the train station.
The train left at 9:15. I sat in a compartment with Karen and Steve. It was a pretty empty train most of the way. I ended up having the whole bench to lay out on and take a nap. I also got my blogging done and transferred some photos using April's laptop. It was a 2 and a half hour train ride and it was pretty hot and sweaty. There was no AC but all the windows were down for a breeze. We spent some time with our heads out the windows enjoying the breeze and cool air. The scenery was really pretty. There was a ton of sunflower fields, corn fields, sheep, cows, passerby on horse and carriage, and cute little villages.
We got off at Satumare where we were picked up by a private bus. We were provided with yummy pretzel rolls and water. Then we set off towards the Maramures village area. Our first few stops were just to use the washroom, get money out of the ATM, and buy some snacks for the trip.
As we were driving we passed this little town that was just full of huge, elaborate houses. The driver told us that they were all trying to one up one another. She said they take between 2-7 years to build usually because they go overseas to work and then come back in the summer months to build. They were quite huge.
Our next stop was at the Merry Cemetery. It's called this because rather than make the cemetery a place of sadness, they have the idea of taking it more lightheartedly and appreciating the life they got to live and look forward to the after life. All the headstones are made by the same guy (whose name I forget, but he's still alive) and are done with brighter cheery colours. Most, if not all, people buried here are of orthodox faith. All the headstones also contained a painting on the top that represented that persons life or how they died. The driver translated the stories written on some of the tombstones for us. One headstone of a lady had a story written by her son-in-law and it was quite humorous. It was about how awful mother-in-laws are and how he advises everyone not to have one.
After the cemetery we made a stop for coffee at this very nice hotel along a river. It was a beautiful place to stop. I was already pretty caffeinated however and hadn't been drinking enough water, but I still opted for another coffee.
From there we made our way to a nun monastery. There were some dark clouds looming ahead and every now and then we would see some lightning. Eventually we caught up to the storm and it just poured down. It even hailed for a bit. A lot of cars were pulled over but we kept going. When we got to the monastery we sat in the van for a bit and waited it out. The monastery was beautiful. It was all made of carved woods and had paintings or frescos inside. We also saw where the nuns sleep and the guesthouse.
Our next stop was at a villagers house where the man had a water wheel that helped operate machinery to pound out wool to make clothing, as well as grind a sort of corn meal. It was quite cool to see work. He also made his own alcohols that he kindly shared with us. They were extremely strong and hard to swallow. He played a bit of music for us and then a sweet old lady came out and brought us into their beautiful tiled house to show us some of the traditional clothes she makes. Another interesting thing we saw outside was a tree that was covered in pots and pans. Turns out that if you see this in front of a house it means that there's a daughter in there to be wed.
From there we visited an old wooden church down the road. It was built in 1643 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage monument.
That was our last stop before making our way to where we were staying for the night in Baia Mare, however we did stop along the road to take photos of the valley and all the straw huts down below at one place. We also stopped at one spot where an optical illusion occurred and the eye was tricked into thinking you were driving down, but resell you were going up. To prove it the driver put it in neutral and we started rolling backwards when it looked like we would just roll forward. There was also water on the side of the road and it was flowing backwards (or uphill) rather than down the other way like you would think. It was really weird.
It was around 9 at this point and the sun was starting to set. We drove through some ski resorts and got beautiful views from the sunset behind the mountains along the way.
It was around 10 when we got to our hotel. We hadn't really had dinner or a proper lunch (just snacks of lots and lots of bread throughout the day) so some of us decided to quickly drop our bags off in our rooms and then go into the centre square about 5 minutes down the road and have a small bite to eat. We found a place with really delicious soup so we all had that. I needed to find somewhere to buy water at as well so our waiter showed Greg and I to a place down the road. It was a little store where you order at the window and the lady didn't speak English. Lucky for us there was a very helpful young man there buying a bunch of beer who helped us out. He ordered for us and even pitched 50 coin for mine since I only had big bills. He was very nice. Greg was buying toothpaste and when we were leaving Greg told him to enjoy his beer and in return he told Greg to enjoy his toothpaste haha.
Then it was straight to bed! Extremely long day.
Merry Cemetery (boy who died at the age of 10 after being run over by a train):
Valley view:
Straw huts/bails:
Villagers water wheel contraption:
Cute babushka lady:
Pots and pans tree:
Old wooden church:
Sunset:
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