In a rich country, blessed with forests, the wood offers the possibility for everyone to become artists. The wooden churches with their tall and pointed steeples, are representative especially for the landscape in Maramures si Salaj.

Not far away from Sighetul Marmatiei (where there is an open air museum exhibiting the traditional architecture of Maramures) we find Sapânta, a village renown for its Cimitirul Vesel (Merry Cemetery) - which, according to an American classification is the second in the world in point of the funeral monuments, after the Valley of the Kings. The cemetery is characterised by the coloured wooden crosses with human faces and symbols sculpted near comical verses. The master sculptor Ion Stan Patras, who created this death carnival, is also buried here.

The region Salaj is considered a miniature Switzerland, at least in point of its landscape beauty, with mountains and valleys, with villages characterised by beautifully carved gates and impressive house-holds, such as Fildu de Sus, Fildu de Mijloc, Sânmihaiu Almasului, Hida, Jac si Moigrad, Sârbi, Rastoltu Mare sau Pausa. The tourist can also see wooden churches dating from the 17 - 18 centuries, many of them built of common oak wood - and this is why they are not so high as those built of fir wood. Many of these churches are richly adorned both in th einside and on the outside.
All through the centuries, people have built watchtowers inside the tall steeples in order to see from great distance the appearance of floods, fires or the invading attacks of the enemies.

The extremely high roofs and the arrow-like steeples made the specialists talk about the "Gothic style of Maramures" and to search for the reasons for which these impressive places and structures were chosen for.