Northern Romania

After leaving Krakow we continued south. We spent one night in a sleepy village called Zdiar in eastern Slovakia which had stunning views, right from the hostel. It was nestled on the edge of a mountain, with ski runs on one side and cows grazing on the other. A place to lose yourself for a week for sure. But we were on the move and we skipped through northern Hungary to get to Romania. When we got to the border we found something that we had not yet seen. People. There were actual guards at this border and they wanted to see our passports. Get with the times Romania, checking passports is so last decade. This was our 14th border crossing and the first time anyone had looked at our passports. No problems and on we went. Immediately it was evident we were in a different world. Within 2 minutes we had seen our first horse and cart, the first of many. We were on our way to Maramures, an area near the Ukraine border. We had to drive through some mountains and as we got closer, so did the weather. It began to rain, and rain quite heavily. The only time the rain stopped was over the mountains where it was replaced with fog, and a real pea souper it was too. Its the worst/best fog Ive ever seen. We arrived at our hostel late in the evening and we were greated with warm smiles and dinner. It was the beginning of three awesome days were we felt like family not paying guests. There wasnt a huge amount to do in the area, so we went on a daytrip drive. There is a cemetery which has painted graves, painted with murals of details about the persons life. There was a David Hasselhof in Knight Rider looking one, complete with car, there were a couple of butcher pictures and some that depict a moment in a persons life that was memorable. It is a colourful cemetery and it had more than a few visitors, odd for a small village on the Ukraine/Romania border. Back at the guesthouse, we received dinner every night, expertly cooked by the owners, serving real traditional Romanian food. I cant say enough about this place.
From there we moved on to Suceava near the Moldovan border. Suceava itself is rather dreary, especially in the rain that seemed to have followed us. There are some very nice monasteries in the area though, famous for being painted. They were a short drive away and there are three main ones, of which we saw two, Suceavita and Moldovita. They are painted with Biblical scenes and some other types of scenes, one notable one is Santa Claus depicted as the exorcist. To explain, the real St. Nicholas was supposed to be able to cast out demons in actual exorcisms. It was interesting that we needed an extra fee to take photos, well, we were supposed to have one, each. In reality, at one monastery we didnt pay at all, and the other we only got one and no one complained. There was also a sign inside the monastery that photos were not allowed at all. Given that there was only a nun at the entry, flash off and silent mode on, we have photos of the inside. Was it worth it? Decide for yourselves.
From Suceava we will go south, to Bucharest with a stop in Brasov, Dracula country.