Baia Mare means the big mine, and the town has earned it. For centuries, gold, silver, lead and copper were dug from the hills around it, and the city grew rich on metal, with medieval Hungarian kings granting it privileges and encouraging German miners to settle. A hundred and thirty-six thousand people live here now, in a bustling northern city with a lively centre, and the mining past is visible in the old buildings, the museum and the scarred hills around.
The old centre has a few good surprises. Stephen's Tower, a Gothic bell tower from the fifteenth century, is the best-known landmark, and the Butchers' Tower is a remnant of the old defences. The main square has colourful baroque houses, and the Mining Museum tells the story of the trade. In the late nineteenth century, the town became a magnet for painters, who set up a colony, the Baia Mare School, that produced much of the country's modern landscape painting.
There is a darker chapter too. In January 2000, a dam holding the waste from a gold-processing plant near the town burst, and cyanide-laden water flowed into the Lăpuș and then the Someș and Tisza rivers, killing fish for hundreds of kilometres, one of the worst environmental accidents in Europe at the time. The rivers recovered, but the memory lingers, and mining remains a sensitive issue here.
Baia Mare is the gateway to Maramureș, a remote, deeply traditional region of valleys and wooden churches. Eight of the churches, tall and narrow with shingle-covered roofs and slender spires, are listed by UNESCO, and the ride leads through villages where carved gates, haystacks and horse carts are an ordinary sight. The roads wind up and down the valleys, with bends and short climbs, and surfaces can be uneven, with potholes after winter. Heavy traffic on the main roads includes lorries and slow vehicles, and animals wander across the road.
Fuel and services are plentiful in Baia Mare, with stations on the outskirts and shops in the centre. It is a good place to fill up and eat, since villages in the valleys have fewer options. A bowl of sour soup, ciorbă, and a plate of grilled meat will see you through the day.
Start early, take time to talk to people, and bring a scarf if you intend to enter a church.