This Northern region of Romania has an area of 10,497 square kilometers and it is placed near the Romanian border with Ukraine. Maramures is surrounded by the Rodnei mountains (Pietrosu Peak is 2,303 m height), Gutii and Tibles mountains. The beauty of the landscapes is good for relaxing your nerves but in these mountains are rich too; here you may find exploitations of copper, gold, silver and salt. Climate is continental temperate but winters are lasting for a long time. Tourists who like to play winter sports are welcome! Visiting Maramures is like going back into Romanian history hundred of years ago. If you love traditions, here, in the Northern part of Romania is the place where you can enter in a world full of lost rituals.

Only in this particular area the New Year's Eve is a magic night when women are not allowed to go out of their gardens. In this night, only men can pass from house to house singing old specific wishes ("uraturi") or playing folk scenes as "goat" while wearing ugly masks to make bad spirits go away. People believe that exactly at midnight sky splits and future can be revealed if you follow a certain secret ritual. For example, single young girls can know something about their future husband. For this, every girl goes alone outside the house, near the tree trunk where pieces of wood are split and prepared for being burn in the stove. If she will first hear a cook singing - her husband will be a good man, but if a dog barking will be the first sound she will hear - her future husband will a bad guy. Also, in the morning of January 1st, before the sun rising, all members of the same family must wash their faces with water taken from a basin in which they put a silver coin and a fir tree branch. They say one by one: "All year I will be clean as this water, young as this green branch, and loved as this coin".

Traveling by car or walking by foot, you may admire people wearing their folk costumes while working out, gardening, taking care of animals or celebrating their community events. Due to its relative isolation, people living in Maramures still preserve intact their ancient lifestyle and strong bonds between neighbors. Each community has a particular personality. You must see with your eyes to understand this incredible fact. Many local festivals are an opportunity to bring different families together, sing old songs and dance in the middle of their village - young and old people mixed in a perfect harmony. Their music has a lovely feeling that cannot be found elsewhere in Romania. You may feel better the warm hospitality of these simple people after tasting a specific drink called "horinca" (count carefully the number of glasses because it is a very strong local plum brandy). . .

The major cities of Maramures are Baia Mare, Sighetul Marmatiei and Borsa. Sighetul Marmatiei is a little town famous in the country for its colorful Christmas parade. Listening to the carols is a real pleasure for foreign tourists despite the fact that they don't understand the meaning of the words. Sometimes these words are talking about funny things because Christmas is a holiday of joy and hope. Sighetul Marmatiei is often called "the heart of Maramures county" and lies at the confluence of Iza and Ronisoara rivers. It was first mentioned in a document dated 1334 because it had a good trade position. Nowadays, it is an important center, both cultural and economic. At the Ethnography Museum you may visit exhibits showing old work means, woven materials, carpets, masks and other interesting traditional things.

The entire Maramures area is a really museum which preserves in open-air the highest wooden buildings in Europe. These wooden tall churches are specific only for this region and they were raised between 17th and 18th centuries with no iron nails in them. They show the great talent of carving wood, skills that were transmitted from father to son, generation after generation. If you want, you may take a one day tour by car of these famous wooden churches starting from Sighetul Marmatiei or Baia Mare. These churches are placed in Surdesti (the highest one of all having 236 ft), Calinesti, Sarbi, Budesti and Sugatag. On another valley, you will find Ieud (the oldest church in Maramures county built in 1638), Barsana and Bogdan Voda. Barsana church has interior frescoes that are very similar to those of the painted monasteries of Moldavia.

Tourists are amazed by the tall wooden gates too. All houses have in front these specific gates that show an incredible artistic taste and the same ability of carving wood. You must know that the most respected family in the village has the most beautiful and the biggest wooden gate among all houses in the area! Look attentively at the patterns used on these gates : the sun, the moon, stars, leafs, trees, birds and try to imagine their secret meaning. It is always a secret meaning hidden there!

The great number of woven woolen carpets, blankets, rugs, and costumes will make a strong artistic impression to anyone who wants to know better people living in these lost villages. For a long time weaving was a household handicraft in Maramures region, especially during winter. You may still see in action the horizontal weaving loom and the ancient manual technique of making woolen yarns. Dyeing is accomplished only by natural pigments taken from leafs, roots or fruits. The main colors used for decorating textiles made in Maramures are white, red, dark brown and black. A general aspect of carpets is the outline of the central field which is decorated with feminine characters dancing a huge round dance (named in Romanian "hora") or horse riders. In the central space, these carpets have a monochrome background filled with geometrical patterns. But every piece has a unique composition and chromatics.

Maybe the most famous place of Maramures region is the Merry Cemetery of Sapinta. The churchyard is unique all over the world because people living here wanted to put on their crosses funny little poems (carved or painted). There was a local artist - Ion Stan Patras - who had the idea of creating those amusing rhymed epitaphs. One single example of poem depicting with humor the bad sides of the person's personality buried there: "Here lies my mother-in-law. If she had lived another year, I would have lied here."

On your first trip, Romanian humor might be hard to understand. You must know that Romanian people survived during their wicked history because they had the ability to see the good part of their lives. Laughing was used like a weapon against poverty, cruelty of wars, cold, starvation, sadness and many other unpleasant moments. Great Romanian historians said often that humor was one of the possible explanations for this nation's existence during two milleniums on the same territory, as an island of Latinity in the ocean of Slavonic languages.