North of Romania, an authentic corner of Europe

North of Romania, an authentic corner of Europe

     On your arrival, the ExclusiveTours tour guide picks you up and head you head off to Godollo, a charming Hungarian town, which hosts the Palace of Sissi, one of the homes of Franz Joseph’s wife, where Exclusive Tours arranged a delicious lunch for you. After lunch, we continue with our journey to the Romanian city of Satu Mare.

     Today our first visit is to Sapanta. Included in the top ten most well known cemeteries of the world, the unique cemetery of Sapanta will change your opinion of mourning. Here you find color and jokes where you would have never expected:

,,Underneath this heavy cross
My poor mother-in-law lies
If three more days she would have lived
Know I’d be dead and she would read!” – Quote from cross

     From the Happy Cemetery we continue our visit to the ill-fated building of the Maximum Security Prison of Sighetul Marmatiei, which was transformed into a museum after the fall of Communism in 1989. You will get to know how life was in this kind of prisons, with all the struggles and pains of the days.

     At the end of the day you will be ready for a religious experience. We will take you to the old monastery of Barsana that used to be the highest wooden monastery in Europe in the Middle Ages, and steel stays tall these days. The details of the woodworks are unique not only because of their beauty but also because the local masters used only their old and simple tools and not any electric modern tool, not even metal nails. The court of the monastery is a rare beauty, perhaps the prettiest garden of a Romanian monastery ever.

     Today we will admire the beauty of the Romanian country side.

     This day we start with a visiting to Ieud, one of the first inhabited villages on the Romanian territory, dating back from the Bronze Age. The wooden church from Ieud is considered to be the oldest in Europe and was included in the UNESCO Patrimony.

     In the EU, with serious demographic problems, the village of Ieud, without any doubt contributed to balancing the shifts, the families here are having on average eight children even today, a fall compared to the communist period when the average was of fourteen children per family.

     We will have our lunch in Ciocanesti, more of piece of art than a village, a place that seems to be out of a naïve painting.

     In the evening we will see another piece of art, the monastery of Moldovita, which dates back to 1532. The Painted monasteries of Moldova are the only art manifestations in Romania from the Middle Ages, a place of a breathtaking experience of colors and stories of the Bible.

     In the evening we will help our genuine cook to prepare our Romanian dinner, and also, with the guidance of a local master we will paint some eggs so to practice an antique Romanian tradition.

     Embark yourself today for an educational Moldavian experience of religion, culture and history.

     A UNESCO world heritage site the Sucevita monastery is on our list today. “The will of the Moldavian classic art”, said the French researcher, Paul Henry Built from the end of the 16th century. Sucevita has the best preserved paintings of all the Moldavian monasteries. The fortified monastery is surrounded by a stunning natural landscape.

     The black pottery of Marginea is well-known all over the world and this tradition goes back to the 16th century. Still using the old traditional way, the master potters of Marginea create unique pieces of art here.

     We will continue our trip to the oldest and the strongest fortress of Moldavia, Suceava. It has a past where the turmoil, the battles, the treasons, the nobles’ councils and the romantic stories merge. The fortress was also once the home of Stephen the Great, the greatest Moldavian ruler, the defeater of the Mohammed Sultan, the Conqueror of Constantinople.The building itself is a remarkable construction, was never conquered; only betrayal opened one time the fortress’s doors for the enemies. We will learn about the very interesting life at the royal court of Moldavia, the history of the castle and its various perspectives for the future.

     Just beside the fortress, there is an open air museum, very well documented on the Moldovian village. It is a very authentic collection of houses from the North of Moldavia, brought from the villages in the vicinity, meant for the visitor to understand better the way of living of the peasants of this region, the way of building their houses and the activities in the workshop of blacksmith or the water mill. The customs regarding baptism and funeral are presented in two houses where one can see the local practice associated with these events.

     Imagine a museum where all the exhibits are made out of wood in order to underline the art of transforming and carving this material. You will find here old tools, weapons, musical instruments, machines, sculptures and all that you can imagine linked to wood.

     Next stop is at the Voronet monastery, the jewel of the Moldavian monasteries also called the “Sixtine Chapel of the Orient”. See for yourself why! The monastery was built in only three months and three weeks, to the orders of Stephen the Great. The dominant color of Voronet monastery is a specific blue that nobody succeeded in reproducing. The central scene evokes “the day of judgement” and the artist painted a masterpiece of an immense complexity and a rare philosophical and theological depth.

     We will continue to experiment the Romanian faith and traditions at the important monastic establishment of the Middle Ages. The Neamt Monastery is one of the oldest in Moldavia (dates back to the end of the XIVth century).

     We can’t pass thrugh Neamt County without visiting also Neamt Fortress. Strategically located on a plateau from where one could supervise the whole valley of Moldova. The fortress of Neamt, one of the first stone-made castles of this part of Europe, was built at the beginning of the 14th century. We will learn all the stories of bravery for which the fortress and its people remained in the history.

     We will start our day by visiting Agapia monastery. The best-known Romanian painter Nicolae Grigorescu, only an apprentice in another monastery in the south, carried out the paintings of the Agapia monastery when he was only eighteen years old.

     Enjoying the beautiful paintings inside, we will understand that a genius has no age.

     Close by we will also visit the Varatic monastery. The superb landscapes around the monastery inspired Eminescu, the Romanian national poet who wrote many of his poems under some of those old trees. The today’s life of the monastery is very active, due to the community of nuns living here, but also because of the many pilgrims.

     In the afternoon we will take our way back to Transylvania, passing thrugh one of the most beautiful and oldest roads of Romania. Carved in stone, the roads of Bicaz Key’s are as wild as they were in the time of the Roman Empire. We will take a short brake for our lunch on the shores of The Red Lake, a place of legends and un-tainted beauty.

     In the evening we will enjoy some free time in the beautiful city of Cluj.

Cluj-Napoca

     Cluj-Napoca is the capital of the Romanian region; Transylvania. The city was established on the old site of the Roman castrum “Napoca”. During the Middle Ages, the Parliament of Transylvania had its headquarter here, proving the importance of the city. We will walk around the town centre; see the Reformed and Orthodoxe cathedrals, the building of the Opera, the university district and the vestiges of the city’s old fortifications. After a pleasant stroll you will have free time with our suggestions for a lunch place.

     Later on we start to make our way back to Budapest.