Romania-Apuseni Mountains and the Maramureş

Ornate houses in Cornea & Armenis

Leaving the border town of Drobeta-Turnu Severin we drove north alongside the Danube River, then inland through lots of small villages and towns.

As we drove, we noticed a difference in the villages in Romania compared to those in Serbia. 

In Romania, we were seeing colourful houses with interesting patterns carved into them, and they were joined together along the road frontage.

Funeral procession

There were old people sitting out front, and lots of horses and carts. 

There seemed to be a lot less rubbish and tagging, with generally, a more pleasant feel.

In one town we came up behind a funeral procession where everyone walked behind the horse-drawn coffin down the main street.

Funeral watchers

We were interested to see people standing outside the front of their house, presumably to pay their respects to the departed.

Then we hit a road that was chocka with road works – they seemed to go on forever! 

Every few kilometres there would be traffic lights to manage the direction of the traffic. 

Gârda de Sus-main street

Of course, we always seemed to hit the red lights!

We eventually turned onto a winding road which took us to the quaint village of Gârda de Sus in the Apuseni Mountains. 

This area is mostly populated by the Motzi people who are the successors of the ancient Dacian peoples. 

Gârda de Sus-view from camp

The village is tiny (6 shops), and traditional ways of life are evident wherever you look.

There we found our chosen camp - but it didn’t look startling.

However, three doors down there was a lovely open green space with tents and another campervan! 

Scărisoara glacier cave entry climb

We turned in and communicated with the owner who spoke no English, to find that it is a newish camp with good facilities.

We parked there and stayed for ages – we just loved the village and mountains. We had a lovely time relaxing in the sun, doing some washing and walking, and not much else.

Scărisoara-cave mouth & glacier

No wifi here so we went to the local restaurant/pension, Mama Uta’s, for food and internet and had some lovely conversations with the German couple in the other campervan.

We wanted to see the Scărisoara Cave Glacier that was close to our camp and learned that it was about 12 km along a well-sealed but narrow road that wound up into the mountains.

Cluj-Napoca Theatre-Marg

And it was – we just didn’t realise how darned steep until we hit the slopes with our bikes! 

We had decided to cycle there because we felt we could not take Vanni.

We were very grateful we had electric bikes but weren’t sure they were going to make because even with pedalling hard, the batteries lost power!

It was a long hard drag up a very steep road, but we made it!

On wobbly legs, we made the 15 minute uphill walk to the cave site and the very steep climb down into the cave and glacier. 

We then crossed the glacier via a poorly lit red boardwalk. Interesting, but hard to photograph.

At 3500 years old, it is the oldest glacier in the world.

It is also the second largest European underground glacier after the Eisriesenwelt ice cave in Austria, and consists of 75,000 cubic metres of ice that is 15 meters wide.

Disappointingly, the ice was quite dirty, presumably from age and the impact of tourism. 

We felt that a little more money could be spent on preserving such a unique site; but we were really glad that we had made the effort to see it.

Cycling back down the winding hill was a lot easier than cycling up and we picked up quite a bit of speed. 

On several occasions we wondered whether our brakes would cope as we approached the bends. It goes without saying that we got home in pretty quick time!

After several days we moved on, travelling north toward Cluj-Napoca, a city full of history and grand architecture.

Cluj-Napoca Cathedral & statue-Leigh

Our camp in this area was about 20 km out of the city and we had a very slow drag through thick traffic to find it. 

Once there, we learned that the nearest village, Gilau, was very small. 

So, needing a supermarket rather than village shop, we backtracked to the city, thinking that the traffic would have cleared by the time we had to travel that road again.

Wrong! Apparently, this road leads to the border and as it was the end of summer holidays, everyone in Europe was heading home on that road! 

Unfortunately, the noise from all that traffic made it hard to get a good night’s sleep.

Next day, we walked 4 km into the village of Gilau along the busy, noisy road, to catch the bus into Cluj-Napoca. 

The bus was clean and tidy and the driver spoke English which was a bonus as he was able to indicate when to get off and where to catch the bus home again. 

Gilău horses-the walk back to camp

All very important information in a strange city.

In Cluj-Napoca, we followed a pedestrian bridge across the river and into the old town. 

A mix of vehicle and pedestrian-only streets made it quite easy to walk around.

Ornate houses in Salva & Coşbuc

We found the information centre and got a map and wandered around exploring. 

Plenty of churches to be seen, lots of local statues and a nice relaxed feel to the city. 

We particularly liked the Ethnological Museum which had a fascinating display of artefacts from the local area.

At about 5 pm we caught our bus back to Gilau and walked the 4 km back to camp. 

Sighetu Marmației

The walk was interesting because we passed a lot of locals sitting outside their houses and chatting to their neighbours, and they all greeted us and said “alo” or “bonjour”.  

It was all very friendly and very lovely.

Sighetu Marmației market

Many of the people were older and most of the women wore head scarves, ankle-length gathered skirts, and sandals with socks.

Our next stop was the region of Maramureş. 

To get there, we drove through many small villages, seeing again, the attractively decorated houses.

We eventually arrived in Sighetu Marmației. 

Carved gates in Onceşti & Bârsana

Interestingly, the town is just over the Carpathian Mountains from Uzhgorod, Ukraine, where we visited in May.

We found our camp there easily but, while being attractive, it was next door to a noisy factory. Not easy to sleep!

We were starting to think we weren’t having much luck finding quiet Romanian campsites after this one and the road noise at the last one!

Poienile Izei wooden church

It was an easy walk from the camp into town to explore. 

We found it to be quite compact and relatively clean and tidy compared to some border towns we have seen, and there were several interesting looking buildings and squares.

There was also lots of hustle and bustle as there was a festival starting that afternoon. 

We thought it might be a cultural/folk festival and eagerly sought information about it. Unfortunately for us, it turned out not to be. It was instead, a very modern affair with lots of loud music.

We had lunch at one of the many stalls and enjoyed a local spicy sausage while we engaged in people watching.

We then wandered through the local market which was full of stalls selling veggies, fruit, cheese, clothes and all sorts of other stuff.

The next morning we drove alongside the Maramureş Mountains through more small villages. 

In this area, many houses have a large carved wooden gate at the entry. They were amazing.

Our next stop was to visit some ancient wooden churches that have UNESCO heritage protection. While we have seen wooden churches in Poland, we felt that the Romanian ones were particularly well preserved.

Bârsana wooden church

The skill in constructing such huge buildings from wood with no nails, is well worth seeing. 

The artwork of the frescoes inside and out, of these ancient churches is stunning – we managed to get some photos but with many photos are forbidden.

We especially liked the ones at Bârsana and Poienile Izei. The later was shown to us by a delightful local woman who saw us coming. She waved a huge key around to indicate that she had to let us in and seemed very proud of her church.

We couldn’t see inside the one at Ieud but while there, visited the local ethnographical museum. 

We were lucky to be the only visitors in this little village museum and a local woman, using mime and Romanian, gave us a demonstration of how flax was stripped and woven in the traditional way. She was very enthusiastic and explicit - it was great.

Having driven past lots of wooden churches, carved gates, haystacks, horses and carts, and cows on the road, we headed to Borşa region. This area is famous for preserving local heritage.

Cristian, Ramona, Leigh, Marg, George- Borşa camp

Many women still wear a traditional dress of white flounced blouses, waistcoat type jackets with woven panels, full black skirts, headscarves and opinci. These are soft leather shoes that are tied with a heavy twine that criss-crosses up their calves over thick socks.

In Borşa township, we drove up a very narrow road to find an overnight parking space in a family-run camp that had accommodation attached to the house. It was a small site and a very tight fit but Vanni made it in and we settled in  for the evening.

While there we met three young Romanians – Ramona, Cristian and George. We got chatting and they invited us share their food and beer which was wonderful. Ramona cooked up a tasty fresh vegetable soup which we had with grilled chicken and pork – a feast! We had a wonderful time and it was great to chat about a huge range of topics with people who had good English.

Next day we headed toward the Bucovina region - our next stop.