Come with us to Maramureș-Bukovina!

Due to the successive trips to Lemberg and Georgia following each other so closely, only now do I have time to “officially” announce our journey to Maramureș and Bukovina, to be launched about three weeks from now. But since many of you have asked about it, and many of you also know the dates, it will certainly take place. The only question is whether we also will have to organize a second tour.

This year we organize our Maramureș-Bukovina tour – on popular demand, as it is already traditional here at río Wang – between 10 and 14 June (Wednesday–Sunday). We leave from Budapest by bus, and arrive through the medieval city of Baia Mare/Nagybánya, the cradle of Hungarian Impressionism and the gate of historical Maramureș, to one of the most archaic regions of Transylvania. We visit its wooden churches included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage and its Hasidic cemeteries, Sighetul Marmației/Máramarossziget, the central town of the region, cut in two by the Tisza river and the Ukrainian-Romanian border, and the “merry cemetery” of Sapânța/Szaplonca. We climb up with the narrow-gauge forestry railway to the virgin forest in the border mountains, to return in the afternoon, along with the wagons loaded with wood, to the Rusyn village of Vișeu de Sus/Felsővisó. We walk to the Horses’ Waterfall and the pass of the Radna Mountains. We visit the Renaissance-style princely monasteries in Bukovina, painted both inside and out with the full symbolism of Orthodox icons, which also feature on the list of UNESCO World Heritage. Our accommodation will be in traditional peasant farms engaged in agroturism, and – if we manage to reserve in time – in the Bukovina monasteries. And this year we will also do what last year we did not dare, due to the political situation: we will go over for a day to the Ukrainian Czernowitz, the traditional center of the region. Our accommodation will be in traditional peasant farms involved in local agrotourism, and in the Bukovina monasteries. On our similar tour of last year, you can read a detailed travel report here.

The participation fee for the five-day tour (accommodation with breakfast + bus from Budapest and back + guide) is 310 euros. Deadline of registration: 31 May, the usual e-mail wang@studiolum.com.

Our previous posts from the the former county of Maramureș (click for a full map), which will increase in the following weeks.