In Maramures, they build in wood as if wood were stone. The valley of the Iza, in the north of Romania, near the Ukrainian border, is a country of green hills, haystacks, carved gates and tall, steep-roofed churches of dark oak and spruce, and eight of the wooden churches here, built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, are on the World Heritage list. The church of the Presentation of the Virgin at Barsana, dated to 1720, is one of them. It stands in the cemetery of the village, slender and dark, with a high, shingle-covered roof and a tower that rises like a pencil. Inside, the walls and ceiling are covered with paintings of saints and biblical stories in a naive and moving style.
The reason for all this wood is partly history. After the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, and again under Habsburg and Hungarian rule, Romanian Orthodox villagers were not allowed to build in stone, so they used the material they had in abundance, and perfected a style with a double-pitched roof to shed snow and a tall, slim tower that signalled their faith. A newer monastery at Barsana, built in the 1990s, has one of the tallest wooden churches in Europe, and its gardens are popular with visitors.
The ride into Maramures is a delight. From Sighet, the road runs through the Iza valley past village after village, each with its own wooden gate, with the Rodna mountains on one side and the Gutai on the other. Further east, the road climbs over the Prislop Pass, about 1,400 metres, to Moldavia, with bends, long views and cold, wet weather that can change quickly. Surfaces are generally fair, although some stretches have patches and potholes, and you will often be sharing the road with horse carts, tractors and sheep. Haymaking time in July is lovely, with haystacks everywhere, and autumn brings the plum harvest.
Barsana, with about six thousand people, has a few shops and small guesthouses, and fuel is available in larger towns such as Sighetu Marmatiei, so top up when you can. The Merry Cemetery at Sapanta, with its brightly painted crosses, and the steam train, the Mocanita, at Viseu de Sus are among the region's other sights. The hospitality of the farmhouses is famous, and a plate of stuffed cabbage with polenta is the proper reward.