Discover Romania: “Drumul verde,” a car-free road in Maramures

Are you tired of cars, noise, pollution? Lepetitjournal.com came up with an idea for a special break - a car-free road located in a spectacular landscape. Discover the 88-km road that connects seven villages of Maramures by foot, bike or even in a cart.The adventure can begin right after reading this article.****

This road, half of which is made of forest roads, is closed to cars and seems straight out of our childhood fairy tales: hills of bright green, meadows bathed in light and enchanting forests. In this period, the locals mow the grass to build capite, huge haystacks that are just waiting for your cameras to take amazing pictures.

Each village has its charm, with its architecture specific to the region, its imposing sculpted gates, its old wooden churches, but also a plethora of ingenious old machinery more than a hundred years old, such as the mills and the horincie – water-operated distilleries used to make the famous alcoholic beverage horinca, the tuica of Maramures. One of the marvels of the region are the valtori, a kind of outdoor washing machine that diverts some of the water from the river and uses its centrifugal force to create a small vortex, perfect for washing wool blankets and rugs.

The locals will be happy to welcome you to taste their specialties, and for those who speak Romanian, share with you the stories of the region, which you will see that are many and colorful. In the village of Breb, you can even sleep in a traditional house that is a hundred years old and dream of the good old days.

If you go through the village of Sarbi, make a stop at Gheorghe Opris, a colorful character who has transformed his property into an open-air museum. He is also famous here for his “magical” gate: all carved wood from which alcohol flows freely. More precisely, this is horinca, which flows through a small tap judiciously concealed inside the wood and connected to the sacred tank. As you will discover, the inhabitants of Maramures are hospitable!