Maramures

Maramures (ma-ra-MOO-resh) is Romania's lush northwestern region, and although it is a small area, it's unique culture is famous throught the rest of the country.

above and below, right: Maramures is famous for it's wood-carved churches, houses, and gates.
Some of these wooden churches have been standing for centuries.

On Sunday, people in Oas or Bogdan-Voda will wear their traditional costumes, and the traditional home-made Romanian brandy known as tuica (Tzoo-ee-cuh) but called palenka in Maramures, is legendary here for it's double-distilled intensity. Beware of imbibing too much at a party!
Baia Mare, the largest city in Maramures, contains all the standard urban Romanian contradictions, with well-preserved medieval towers and sturdy rustic folk dwellings mixed togather with the ubiquitous urban plazas of relentlessly dreary concrte high-rises that stretch for miles, hastily built without regard to geographical position, convenience, or whether the plumbing and heating would ever work (it usually doesn't). My friends in baia Mare retreated to the rustic sanctity of their village farm, some twenty kilometers away (below, left).

left: old and new transport in Satulung, outside Baia Mare, where Florin makes his famous Palenka
below: the valley of the Lapus River, just north of Dej

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