1502 km weekend trip

That’s the longest weekend trip I ever did (almost 1000 miles). OK, I’ve cheated a little, because I left Bucharest on Friday evening…

I remember when I was a little boy (that was back in the communist era) that my grandparents where taking me during the summer vacation to what they called “country tour”. Romania is not such a big country – it took about 2-3 weeks, and 2000km. The tour however had mythical proportions back then: due to gas restrictions, my grandfather had to save the monthly allowance for the entire year to get the tour done. We used to have an old ’60 Russian Moskwicz, which will all the pre-trip repairs was constantly breaking down in the tour and needed repairs on the side of the road.

Now, 25 years later, it took me a weekend to do a 1500km trip. On a motorcycle, leaving directly from the office, with no preparations (ok, I did take some underwear with me in the topcase in the morning). I just needed the credit card.

Of course it rained. It was freezing cold. It was so windy I couldn’t go faster than 60mk/h at times, and still fighting to keep the bike straight. But what is all this compared with doing the mythical “country tour” in a weekend? Just fueling stories I will say to my grandchildren.

I actually left to Satu Mare Bikers party (which is on the North edge of the country, while Bucharest is 60km or so away from the southeast point. Very few bikers there (that was not a surprise, it was a local party).

As I was having a coffee in the nearby mall, checking the weather on the PDA, and looking on the web on my 3G connected laptop for things to do in Satu Mare I remembered the old times and doing the “country tour with my grandparents”. Felt like hey! I can just take the road and re-live the mythical times. I had no deadlines, no destinations. I can just follow the road wherever it takes me. Riding a bike gives you the freedom to just go or stop. You know.

But first I decided to visit the Firefighters old tower from Satu Mare. It was build in 1904 and at the base the walls are 80 cm thick!

Picture done, time to go to Maramures.

Maramures is famous for the locals keeping alive the old traditions, hard working people, monasteries and beautiful scenery. Here is an excellent site that tells you about the Maramures. They say: ” The whole Maramureş region is a living “outdoor museum” famous for its unchanged way of life and for its well-preserved wooden villages and churches. It is perhaps one of the better-known regions of Romania – but still not much travelled.

The Maramures wooden churches are remarkable examples of well-preserved religious architecture that emerged from the Orthodox traditions and Gothic style influences.”

It takes at least a week to visit the region. Of course, I couldn’t do that (but maybe I will soon), so I just stopped in a few places. One is the “Merry cemetery” from Sapanta.

Merry cemetery?? It’s a real cemetery, where all crosses are blue wooden crosses, and each has a written a ironical and humorous epitaph about the life or death of the deceased.

This tells a story about a tractor accident:

This one talks about a child killed by a taxi:

This other one talks about some brothers that liked to sing:

This one talks about an old lady that did traditional cloth for the tourist and sold them:

The story of the liquor store owner:

Ok. Time to say a few words about the road:

And then it rained. And got nasty. But this will be a “country tour” to remember. Hope you’ll get as lucky as I am to re-live my childhood dreams.