Day 4 Baia Mare Sighetu Marmatiei Moldavian Monasteries 300 km

In the morning, breakfast buffet at the hotel. After breakfast drive to Sapanta and visit the Merry Cemetery, unique in the world, amazing due to its originality. The wooden crosses, sculptured and painted by craftsman Stan Patras, turned it into an authentic museum. The colours of the crosses and the humorous texts on them capture for eternity the essential episodes of life and show the strength of the Romanian spirit, which do not fear of death.

Then, visit the Jewish highlights: Sighet Synagogue Vizhnitzer Klaus, The Cemetery with the Monument of the Soap, Sighetul Marmatiei with the Ellie Wiesel House.

“I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone-terribly alone in a world without God and without man.” Elie Wiesel, “Night” (1958). Eliezer Wiesel (commonly known as Elie) is a world-renowned Romanian Jewish, philosopher, humanitarian, political activist, and Holocaust survivor. We shall visit the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance from Sighet. A place for prayer and meditation, which combines the antique style with a modern construction, this was built in one of the prison courtyards in 1977. The names of almost 8000 people that died in the prisons, concentration camps and deportation camps from Romania were engraved in smoked Andesite on the wall of a ramp that descends in the underground. The first rooms of the museum as well as the "Place for prayers and meditation" were inaugurated in June 1997, when the Memorial was declared “a place of national interest”.

After that, we will cross the Carpathian Mountains to Bucovina, the famous region in the north-east of Romania. The "Painted Monasteries" is the major Moldavian destination, because of the vivid and animated frescoes on their church walls. These depict Biblical and other scenes, designed in sequences almost like strip cartoons to educate the local people in the Orthodox religion. Due to their singleness, the monasteries in Bucovina are now UNESCO protected cultural sites. The art historians compare their artistic value with the mural paintings of San Marco church of Venice or the church of Orvietto. The secret of the Moldavian painters who prepared the colors and the techniques that made the paintings incredibly resistant is still a mystery.

Accommodation in a 4* pension/hotel in Gura Humorului/painted monasteries area, breakfast included.