About 25 km south of Sighet, the village of Bârsana holds two things worth the drive. The original wooden church in the village centre is one of the eight Maramureș wooden churches on the UNESCO World Heritage list — a small, perfectly proportioned wooden building from 1720 with a tall single steeple. A few hundred metres on, the Bârsana Monastery — built between 1993 and 2010 — is a remarkable modern reinterpretation of the traditional Maramureș style: a complex of carved wooden buildings (church, bell tower, refectory, guesthouse) climbing a hillside, all built without nails by local craftsmen. The two together make the strongest day trip from Sighet.
Bârsana Monastery
Modern wooden monastery complex modelled on traditional Maramureș churches