Castles, Cake, and Open Road

Friday was our last day in Breb, so we decided to walk between two of the villages and take things in slowly in a way that you can't in a car (the way you especially can't when Taylor is driving). First, though, Vio sent us placinte --fluffy pancakes filled with sheep's cheese. Fortified with carbs, we set out for the nearby Hoteni, for a roughly six-mile round trip hike. As on the other days, we had the road mostly to ourselves--it wound past the Rooster's Crest mountain in the distance, and we could see the locals out working their fields (they all live centrally in the village and own the land surrounding it). The foliage seemed to be turning by the day, with some trees having suddenly burst into bright red. And though I did not see the hedgehog I hoped to find, we did have some unexpected experiences--an old woman gathering apples into her yard called to us and gestured us over, and then filled our pockets with apples. They were tart, sweet, and small, defi...

On Thursday, we had two goals: see Sapanta's Merry Cemetery and the wooden monastery at Barsana. Each were about an hour from Breb, though not that far of a drive--it's just that the roads are very winding and you can't go very fast (though they are mostly well-paved). Sapanta is near the border of Ukraine, and its cemetery is unique in the world--its wooden headstones are painted bright blue, and each has a scene or two from the deceased's life and an epitaph (often humorous) inlayed into the cross. A man named Stan Ioan Patras carved and painted most of the headstones, and it was his life's work; after his death, his apprentice took it over. Several of the headstones appeared to show someone being hit by car/walking in front of  a car--were they killed by a car? Were they the crazy driver? I don't read Romanian so I guess I'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised either way.  The church is also beautiful, though it's still being resto...

I was a little sad to leave Sighisoara because there were so many castles and castle ruins scattered around that I didn't get to visit--there's not a lot of information about any castles other than the main attractions on the internet, so I only found out about all of the other ones from a hotel map as we left. However, with a six-hour drive ahead of us to Breb, we didn't have time for any more Transylvania exploring. The drive was a little nerve-wracking--not because of traffic, though there were still those death-wish drivers zipping around, but because there was often no cell signal and the roads can get rough. We drove straight through, slowing down once for a pig on the side of the road, and saw some beautiful countryside along the way--are all the lakes like mirrors here? I've only seen a few, but it certainly feels like it. Almost immediately upon crossing into Maramures County, it feels like a different world--the foliage is changing this far north, jus...