Experience the best of Sighetu Marmației

Sighetu Marmației lies on the Tisa river, which marks the border with Ukraine, in the northern Romanian region of Maramureș. The Maramureș Village Museum shows wooden houses, churches and farm buildings from villages across the region, and a memorial museum in a former prison records the victims of communism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was born in the town, and his family home is a small museum.

Maramureș has many wooden churches, eight of them UNESCO listed, with tall, slim spires; some stand in villages in the Iza valley, close to town. The Merry Cemetery at Săpânța, where each carved blue wooden cross carries a painted scene and a rhyming verse about the person below, is about fifteen kilometres away. Haystacks and carved gateways line the roads.

Plum brandy, called horincă here, is made in many farmyards of Maramureș, and balmoș, a rich dish of cornmeal, cream and cheese, is a local classic. Plum and cherry blossom white the valleys in spring. In winter the region keeps its customs alive with masked processions around the new year.