Suceava to Săpânţa
Distance travelled = 284 kilometres driving by road and 3.6 kilometres walking (4,800 steps).
I had quite an early start this morning (at 5:15am) as I had to send and answer several work e-mails and take a Zoom call before breakfast. After a very welcome breakfast, I started my journey at 9:15am, and arrived at 3:15pm, the drive taking at least an hour longer than it should have done because of a major traffic accident on the way (not involving my car I’m pleased to say). It’s fairly easy to describe the route I took on the drive from Suceava to Sapânţa. I started on National Highway 17, then took a turn and followed National Highway 18, with the final section into Sapânţa being on National Highway 19. The weather was the mirror reverse of yesterday, starting with clear blue skies that became progressively more overcast as the day proceeded, degenerating into steady rain soon after I arrived in Sapânţa.
There’s not much to say about the day’s driving other than saying that it was through beautiful mountain scenery dotted with pretty villages. In some places the scenery reminded me of southern Germany or Austria, while other stretches of the trip reminded me of the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Unfortunately, there were very few roadside places to stop along the way, which frustratingly limited my capacity to get photos.
About 20 kilometres before reaching Sapânţa I passed through the town of Sighetu Marmaţiei, which has a border crossing to Ukraine over the Tisza River. My route went to within 400 metres of the border crossing, so I took the short diversion (two city blocks) to see it. It appeared to be a pedestrian-only border crossing, and there was a line of people (mainly women) waiting to enter the tent where immigration formalities were handled. I elected not to stop and photograph the border crossing, as frontiers are sensitive zones in most parts of the world, and I expect this is especially so when one of the countries sharing the border is at war.
Upon arrival in Sapânţa I checked into my guesthouse, the somewhat quirky Pensiune Plai cu Peri, located at the end of a small laneway that stops precisely 1,000 metres south of the Tisza River which marks the Ukrainian border. After waiting a quarter of an hour for the guesthouse’s one employee (owner?) to come to the reception desk, I managed to convince her that I did indeed have a reservation even though she spoke no English or French. After filling in some tedious forms, I was shown to my room in the attic after climbing a couple of flights of dimly lit stairs that were so steep they would probably be declared illegal in most other parts of the world.
Sapânţa has two places that I particularly wanted to visit, and even though steady rain had started falling I was determined not to miss them. My first destination was the Merry Cemetery (Cimitirul Vesel), a unique creation that began in 1935 when a local woodcarver named Ioan Stan Pătraş began carving crosses for the graves in the old church cemetery. He painted each cross blue, which is the traditional colour of hope and freedom, and added a picture showing some aspect of the person’s life together with a witty epitaph.
Many of the graves show the deceased person’s career, and there seemed to be a vast array of animal herders, shepherds, weavers, barbers, teachers, truck drivers, and so on. Other graves portray how the person died. And so it was that I found myself on a wet autumn afternoon in Romania exploring a cemetery. The church in the cemetery was quite spectacular in its own right, displaying a colourful, very high steeple that seems to be characteristic of Orthodox churches in this northern extremity of Romania.
As the rain continued to fall, I headed to my second destination, the Sapânţa-Peri Monastery. The monastery building was a large, quite elegant structure that could have potentially passed as a large hotel in Germany’s Black Forest, but even more imposing was the adjoining wooden church which claims to be the tallest wooden structure in Europe with a height of 75 metres. I actually have a view of the church steeple from the window of my room at the guesthouse, but it was much more impressive when seen “up close” despite the wet conditions.
I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow, so I am hoping for a good night’s sleep. My room may be only a kilometre away from Ukraine, but fortunately the nearest fighting is over 1,000m kilometres to the north-east. Given that situation, and the fact that Romania is a member both of NATO and the EU, I very much doubt my sleep tonight will be disturbed by gunfire. The sound of the rain may well be a different story as it falls on the roof above me in my attic room.
