This past weekend, my friends and I took a road trip to a region in northern Romania called Maramureș. This region is home to many small villages scattered around the valleys of the northern Carpathian mountain range. The village where my friends and I stayed is named Breb. During our stay there, we got to experience what life is like in rural Romania, and how century-old Romanian traditions still play a large part in the villagers’ daily lives. I found it fascinating how vastly different the environment in Maramureș is from Constanta. Read on to find out why!
Staying in Breb felt like I was stepping back in time to how people lived hundreds of years ago! Most of the villagers live in small wooden houses that look like cottages, with tin roofs. Almost every household raises various farm animals, such as chickens, pigs, cows, goats, sheep and horses. Many villagers get around using horse-drawn wagons. People also grow their own fruits and vegetables. In other words, the villagers of Breb are very self-sufficient: they grow and raise their own food, build their own homes using wood from nearby forests and collect their water from wells or nearby water sources.
