Things to do
5-
Village Hotel
A group of restored wooden houses at the top of the village with hand cut shingles and tiled stoves, run as a small hotel by the couple who carried out the restoration. Stoves are lit in the evening, meals are taken at one table, and the hay meadows begin at the garden fence.
-
Budești Josani Wooden Church
A wooden church of 1643 on the UNESCO list, with a broad roof, a slim spire and interior paintings of 1762, holding the mail shirt said to have belonged to the outlaw Pintea. Its scale is unusual for a village church, and it stands in the village centre eight kilometres from Breb.
-
Creasta Cocoșului
A volcanic dyke standing out of the Gutâi ridge at 1,428 metres, named for the cockerel's comb it resembles, and reached in about two hours from the pass road. It is a nature reserve and a rock climbing venue, and the final rocks are exposed enough to turn walkers back in wind.
-
Desești Wooden Church
A church of 1770 on the UNESCO list whose painted interior of 1780 covers every surface with a Last Judgement running the length of the nave. The village keeps the key. The paintings are the work of Radu Munteanu, whose hand is recognisable in several churches across the valley.
-
Sârbi Josani Wooden Church
A small eighteenth century church with a carved rope moulding around the outside, in a hamlet that still runs a water powered whirlpool washing machine and a plum still on the stream. The hamlet lies below Budești on the Cosău, and the workshops beside the water take wool from the villages around.
