il Maramures e la Bucovina
We enjoyed two days for only the beautiful region of
Maramures, with its two valleys and
Iza Mara, all its numerous wooden churches (but just see a pair), admired its doors inlaid with many small towns: Voda, Ieud , Budesti, Calinesti, Surdesti, etc. ..
the city on the border with Ukraine, which has a beautiful Sighetu Marmatiei longitudinal square with various flower gardens, a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery and a sad prison where Ceausescu had thousands of political prisoners who are remembered today in the prison museum.
The cemetery Sapanta cheerful, which is a cemetery created by a friendly local in the 30s decided to make the departure more cheerful preparing for every deceased person a fine story of his spiritual life with tables and iron crosses with prevalence of blue. In this same location there is also a wooden church with the tallest spire in Europe.
We stayed in two boarding houses in Sapanta our first night greeted warmly by the host family and the Italian, who lives in Belluno in the Veneto area for several years and works for a contract in our power company Enel and the second night in
Moisiei board cheapest and craziest of our journey in
Romania.
In fact the house next to the road leading to the pass inside Prislop has rooms where you conquer the triumph of kitsch, furnished with colorful posters, covered work, rugs, dolls, etc. .. while in the courtyard in front of a raging river, the river there is a small garden and camping and also a number of wineries where the friendly landlord produces palinca hectoliters of continuing to drink excessively so generously offering it to customers and friends, guests also schnapps and cranberry dishes of sausages and vegetables.
I spent a pleasant evening in his company, his son and his engineer friend that I was briefed on the economic-political situation of the country.
Before we visited the beautiful
Moisiei religious complex of Barsana, recently made a series of wooden churches and palaces that house the nuns very beautiful in a flower garden park and very well cared for. Were broadcasting live with putting a speaker stand with the priest who officiated central accompanied by the singing of the nuns and the presence of locals and tourists to the shelter of umbrellas because it was raining.
Then we arrive at Viseus and Jos de Sus (up and down) two beautiful villages on the edge of the region and the previous Prislop Pass, which separates from the
Maramures Bucovina.
In these countries, you can take the local train that comes in a beautiful wooded valley which was once used by loggers in search of timber and is now being used for this trip that we could not do because we've come to the day when the train was fully leased by a local agency for its customers.
Sin and then off to bag a rich and beautiful town that seems out of
Maramures and anticipates that the wealth of nearby
Bucovina seems that Switzerland compared to the poor but beautiful
Maramures.
STEP Prislop is easily accessible along its bends comfortable surrounded by woods. At the top is a stone church and then begins to fall and start the surprise. Streets clean, newly built, I think, with signs that are the envy to developed countries.
Beautiful houses decorated with floral and geometric patterns and adorned with gardens with flowers of lilac and hotels that recall those of our own South Tyrolean chalet in the Swiss and Austrians.
Let the beautiful and modern Campulung Moldovenesc, but be more easily decide to go and find accommodation in VAMA in a private home with nice landlord tells us that his son married in Italy to Civitavecchia lawyer and daughter moved to Bucharest.
It gives us the straight for the first visits to the monasteries in stone and dinner in a nice local restaurant pase trout.
So after a refreshing shower we start to see a whole long list of monasteries and protected by UNESCO World Heritage: Sucevita and Moldova on the first day, Voronet,
Romania to the Sistine Chapel with frescoes by the prevailing blue-blue, Humor Arbore and the second through beautiful landscapes with valleys, hills, meadows, campaigns very pleasing to the eye.
The monasteries are masterpieces of art which differ in the prevalence of color sometimes green, sometimes blue, sometimes red-brown and are painted inside and out with biblical scenes and high-impact color in a very relaxed all the churches' Internal parks protected by high walls and guarded by zealous nuns very polite and discreet that sometimes they forget to pay the ticket or scold those who take pictures without having paid first on the right.
The cost is very low: around 1 € for the entry and € 1 for photos.
Inside precious icons, crucifixes, rich altars, walls and domes and painted three rooms, the first for women, men for the second and the third for the priest with the altar and the dome.
We go down south through the big city and jumping SUCEAVA Bukovina that does not seem interesting, and whose passage is blocked by high entry and work in progress.
After a set number of convents, monasteries, comes the latest and inhabited by priests and students always with beautiful churches, walls and parks and the complex of Agape near Targu Neamt with rich church and surrounding buildings with columns and arches decorated with white geraniums red and inhabited by hundreds of nuns living in villettine white and personally take care of the beautiful flower gardens.
We arrive in the beautiful and modern Piatra Neamt with its orderly traffic, the river, the beautiful central square with the usual well-kept garden, a pedestrian square mound with the ancient church and other buildings of interest before embarking upon the long journey that will lead us to GORGES BICAZ Lacu Rosu and the pond that is the red.
The gorge can be reached after passing through a long green valley with small guesthouse and hotel and some small towns here and there. Then the road goes up and starts the show perhaps unique in the world of mountains that fall into a narrow gorge with a winding road that runs uphill. And 'now evening, there are few tourists around and many stores that sell paccottaglia and they're on the edge of the road, leaning against the rock walls are closing shop. We remain mesmerized by this vision, especially not knowing the extent and with the idea of returning the next day after staying with the overlying red lake.
We arrive at the top and another fascinating show opens our eyes: a small but long lake mud-colored than red, with pieces of cut trees and outcrops, pine trees all around, thinning lawns with restaurants, bars and hotels of various shapes, Some mastodons with park and lawn. We are staying in a modest but decent and then we go for a walk along the banks of the beautiful lake which also has a small marina with boats and a restaurant well located with a panoramic view where you can have a very good but quite expensive dinner (120 her in two words € 30, but we were not used to much) in trout, all the trimmings, the Placinta, the coveted sweet but then disappointing, and our first bottle of Feteasca royal, good white wine from
Romania, which accounts for one fourth of cost of dinner.