Wooden Monasteries Romania

Travelled:213km

Stay:Romania Borsa Resort parking area N47.6164 E24.7832

Visited: Sapanta Merry Cemetery and Monastery, Barsana Monastery

The queue at the Hungarian/Romanian border was already quite busy at 7:30 and so it took us a good hour to get through due to them checking and stamping Mark’s Australian passport.

 Then it was a stop at the petrol station to fill up and to pay the road tax (toll). We were told that the motorhome was in Category B costing €7/7 days or €16/30 days. We opted for the later as we didn’t want to be caught out trying to find a place to buy more if we needed to. We also lost an hour in our day as the clock moved forward into a different time zone. It didn’t take long for us to see the first horse and cart for the day. 

Some other churches along the way

Just after midday we arrived in Sapanta to see the Merry Cemetery. It is famous for its blue coloured tombstones with paintings describing who is buried here along with a light hearted poem.

 We were also impressed with the half finished colourful church.

 We paid a small ticket price of 5RON ea (€1) to visit. It has become quite popular and many souvenir shops now line the street leading to the cemetery.  

This is a new church built for the locals.

Not far from here we also went to visit the beautiful wooden Sapanta Peri Monastery which was built in Maramures style. With its tower at 78m, it is considered to be the worlds tallest wooden church. Mark was impressed with the architecture and building methods. 

A staircase made from 2 solid tree logs

We then continued are journey along bumpy roads and lovely countryside. We drove through towns with a mixture of old and new houses, some buildings were abandoned, others unfinished. 

We saw many cars with foreign registrations especially French and English but they didn’t seem to be tourists. There were plenty more horse and carts along the way, as well as old mummas sitting in the shade.

 We finally reached our next destination Barsana Monastery, which is another complex with several beautiful wooden churches and buildings that were in a lovely garden setting. Once again we admired the workmanship and the painted interior of the church and other buildings. 

We decided as the day was still young to keep driving a bit further and chose a park4night spot in Borsa. The car park was quite busy when we arrived as there is a ski lift that can take you up to the longest waterfall in Romania. For us it was dinner time and so we each enjoyed a wood fired pizza with a beer, all for just over €10. Can’t complain about that!