Maramures

DAY 1 - THE ENTRANCE GATE INTO THE HEART OF ROMANIA (170 KM)

Pick up from the Cluj Napoca’s International Airport and heading on a tour towards the heart of Transylvania and it’s heritage, the beautiful Cluj Napoca  city stands as an entrance gate. After visiting city’s both cultural and artistic side, we embark on the tour bus and  head on, slowly but surely towards the Maramures County.

We shall travel towards the noth-east and our first stop will be in Dej, a former salt-mine area, which developed into a commercial town as early as the XVIIIth century. 

   Lunch break.

  On the way towards the accommodation site, we drive through the traditional Sacel village thereafter arriving in Viseul de Sus, a small town also the departure point for the most attractive trails in the Maramures Mountains.

  A genuine romanian night with traditional food and folk dance will make you see the authenticity of Maramures.

Accommodation in Viseul de Sus.

DAY 2 – MARAMURES’ SIGHTS (135 KM)

   After breakfast, we embark on the bus and head towards Sighetu Marmatiei, the capital of the Maramures county with its countless tourist attractions such as:  Ethnographic Museum, the Village Museum, Memorial to the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance (former communist prison of Sighet, built between 1896-1897, which shows in the most authentic way possible how Romanians were imprisoned, tortured, interrogated, forced to hard labor and even killed during the communist period).

Passing onto more peaceful thoughts , the next attraction is Sapanta village known for its Merry Cemetery, an unique tourist attraction in the world, an original

fresco of rural life and a true folk art museum, where the epitaphs on the tombstones tell the story of the person’s life and death in a funny way. Nonetheless, there is located the tallest wooden church in the world (78 m height);

Afterwards we visit Vadu Izei, a  town well-known for the  Maramures wooden-carved gates and rural tourism. We will drive through the balneary resort, Ocna Sugatag, a place that was known as a medical center of treatment for reumatism and reduction of muscular and bone disorders. The last stop of the day will be at Barsana Monastery, a holy place where nature merges with the Church’s spirit in a cosmic Liturgy.

Dinner and acommodation

DAY 3: NATURAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGHTS (80 KM)

After breakfast, we shall head on to Budesti, a village situated on Cosau’s valley, where there is a wooden church dating from the  XVIIth century which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage list. Also it is the place where you shall hear the legends of the local Robin Hood – Pintea the Brave. 

The next stop will be in Dragomiresti, a place whose great landscape is created by the Tibles and Baicu Mountains. The place where geography meets history is at Moisei, where we find the Moisei Heroes memorial, dedicated to Romanian soldiers killed in the most violent massacre by the Hungarian troops in the 2nd World War. The monument is located in the Rodna National Park .

The day will end in Borsa. It is rather a small ski resort, where people come to rest and for the spa treatments recommended for treating lung disease, bronchitis, anemia and peripheral nervous system disorders. It is located in a beautiful landscape, almost wild, decorated with forests of spruce. This is the starting point of the trekking trails Rodna Mountains National Park.

Dinner and accomodation at Borsa Resort.

DAY 4 - LEAVING MARAMUREŞ BEHIND (170 KM)

After breakfast, we shall enjoy one last walk in the Rodna Mountains National Park, towards the Horses Waterfall, after which we shall embark on the tour bus which will take us back to Cluj-Napoca, where we shall have lunch, before your departure from Romania by plane.