Romania’s Maramures region may be modernising in places but take a walk in the countryside among forests,wooden churches and hay stooks and you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back in time • Week 1: Croatia Week 2: Albania Week 3: Bulgaria Next: Slovakia Driving over the Gutâi Pass into northern Romania’s Mara valley the signs were qualified: a summit mysterious with cloud, an ancient woman selling honey by the road, and as we dropped out of the forest and back into sunlight,long panoramas of rolling countryside dotted with hay stooks leading off into the purple ridges of the Carpathians. People say that whether you want ancient Europe, a dwelling steeped in the rhythms of nature and skills lost elsewhere, and then Romania’s Maramures region is for you. Guidebooks talk of medieval isolation and ways of life unchanged since the third century AD. And then there was William Blacker’s sublime 2009 book The Enchanted Way which cast a deeply romantic glow over the entire dwelling. No wonder we were fired up with great expectations.
So when we began to see the villages,there was some consternation. Yes, there were a lot of traditional wooden houses with great square ornamental gateways and barns where homemade haymaking tools were leaning. But there were other buildings too: block-built houses with gruesome balconies and UPVC windows. These did not fit. Nor did the ancient man in a Chelsea football shirt. Expectations are vital in the travel trade and ours were not being met, or not yet at least.
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Source: theguardian.com