FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Cluj-Napoca

We woke up in Maramures which were more drizzly and cool than wild and snow-covered. We took a morning stroll through along the streets which supported more cars than oxen, but after crossing a bridge and taking a few turns we ended up in a part of town which was full of wooden houses, farm strips and streams interpersed with the odd house that could have come straight from Homeworld. Our first encounter at the village was with Nikolai, they ran the local village distillery. The locals would bring them their choice of fermented fruit and they would complete the process on behalf of the locals to produce their horinca. At first we thought they were emptying sewerage bins but when we discovered that the brown lumps were fermented fruit the bile levels settled.

Nikolai was also a talented woodworker, having built everything we could see in front of us that was made out of timber. They had also cleverly diverted a small part of the River Iza onto their property. This small diverted flow would generate electricity, power and run the distillery and also play a major role in the villages' communal "washing machine"! The whole set up was simply ingenious! Mal's pig spit suddenly just lost a bit of shine after seeing this home-made set up.

A generous breakfast. The children loved the "giant chiacken nugget"

River Iza

We saw this at the National village museum! A more modern roof but the same concept applies

This was all built by Nikolai

What are they doing?!?

Moving this...femented plums

The distillery set up

George explaining how it works. The water you see running is from the River Iza, used to help condensation

The river water, both powering the distillery and also used for condensing

The flow was diverted into smaller channels

A large churn to wash the village "rugs"!

The washed rugs hanging to dry

Before exiting the property, the water had one last job...providing electricity

One of the symbols of Maramures

This means that there is a girl in the house to be married

Swing by Nikolai, Model by Albany

Next stop in Maramures was Barsana Monastary, another good example of the Maramures skilled timber craftsmen. The wooden buildings look old but most were built relatively recently using local timber and in a style typical of the region.

We were supposed to visit Sighet Prison Memorial, one of the very few Communist museum/memorial. It was used as communist for only 6 years but during that time, many of the intellects and religious leaders in Romania were imprisoned or executed here. The prison was unfortunately closed, and this was the first minor mistep made by the tour company. This was perhaps something they should have known prior to our visit.

We survived another long drive back to Transylvania, arriving at Cluj-Napoca. Our orientation tour was by way of minivan today before we checked into Villa Siago for our last night in Romania. We had to repack our bags, and buy provisions for our train journey tomorrow as there was predicted to be no dining car. We briefly visited our last Romanian Christmas market before calling it a night.