After leaving Hunedoara we headed for the area of Maramureș, Romania, minus our nephew and his girlfriend. The city we were staying in was Vișeu de Sus and before arriving we all thought that it would be much smaller than it actually is, it’s not a huge city but we were expecting a village. The distance from Hunedoara to Vișeu de Sus is not very far if you were to draw a straight line on a map but by car it is about a 4 and a half hour drive if you don’t stop anywhere along the way. I was willing to skip visiting this area because of the time it would take to get there but Adriana insisted that we go and I’m very glad that she did.

Some scenery on the way to Vișeu De Sus below. The picture was taken out of a moving car window so it isn’t the best.

We arrived in Vișeu de Sus in the evening and checked in at our pension, which I can’t remember the name of right now. The pension was nice but we were on the bottom floor so there wasn’t any beer drinking on a balcony that night. I wanted to have yogurt for breakfast the next morning so we went into town to look for a grocery store. My favorite grocery store in the whole world is Kaufland and the Kaufland grocery store Vișeu de Suș was already closed that evening so we had to settle on a smaller store, which I can’t remember the name of either right now. When we were back at our pension we ate, drank a couple of beers and called it a night.

The next morning we checked out of our pension and headed back into town, where the Mocanița Maramureș train station https://mocanita-maramures.com/ was located. There were quite a few people there for the two train rides that left that morning and you should make reservations in advance if you want to take this train ride. I didn’t take many photos of the train station and the photo below of an old (non operating) steam engine was taken after our ride.

There is a lumber yard (or saw mill) as the train leaves the station.

A wooden church. The dark area on the top left of the photo is smoke from the train.

A photo of Adriana and myself on the train. I need to do something about that beer belly...

Our train stopped and everyone got off while it went to change its direction. There was a small restaurant at this location where people could get something to eat. I can’t remember exactly how long the ride was but it was somewhere around 5 hours altogether including this stop which was about lunch time. If I remember correctly, the cost for the ride was $20 per person, half of what it costs us to take a 3 hour train ride through the Adirondack mountains a few months earlier in the United States. Below is a short video that I took of the train leaving to turn around.

When the train arrived at this stop, I do not know the exact location, some young people where there to greet everyone wearing traditional Romanian clothing. These young people (I want to call them “kids” because they are so much younger than I am) also sung traditional Romanian songs and danced. A group of younger children who were on the train with us, joined them in the singing and dancing.

After about a half hour or so, the second train that was running that day showed up to the turn around point/location.

Our train heading back to the station. When we started out, we were closer to the engine and now we were near the end of the train.

This is how they heated the train cars when needed, with these little stoves.

And finally, this is how the train cars are coupled together. Notice that there are no brake lines between the cars.