Satu Mare
Satu Mare is a city in Maramureș, Romania.
Understand
Satu Mare is a historic city with roots dating all the way back to the Stone Age. It is probably most famous internationally for being the wellspring of the Satmarer Chasidic Jews.
Get in
By plane
Despite the fact that Satu Mare has an International Airport (SUJ IATA) [1] - located 14 km (8.7 mi) south of the city - there is only one international connection (charter with Antalya, Turkey) operating only during summer. There is also a daily internal flight to and from Bucharest operated by Tarom, departing to Bucharest in the evening and landing in Satu Mare in the morning.
By train
Satu Mare is linked with Oradea by six trains daily, with Cluj by four trains (4-5 hours of travelling), with Bucharest by three trains and with Timisoara by one (8 hours of travelling). There are no international trains crossing the town.
By car
You can get to Satu Mare from any neighboring county by using road E641 from Oradea (Bihor County), E81 from Zalau (Salaj County) or E58 from Baia Mare (Maramures County). The road conditions are good because there were several modernization projects financed in order to improve the main road connections. (but you can still expect some places were roadworks are still in progress - specially in the north / north-eastern part of the county) It is also very easy to enter the county from Hungary (via Csenger-Petea border crossing). Because Romania is a EU country scheduled to join the Schengen area you will only need to show your passport or your ID at the border (usually it will take no more than 5 minutes as there is only a single checkpoint). On the other hand, if you plan to enter the county (and in the same time Romania) from Ukraine the story is a bit different. Expect waiting times for up to 3-4 hours (august 2011) or even more when shift change. This is mainly due to the Ukrainian side, where border guards don't seem to be stressed at all, barely speak any other language than Ukrainian or Russian, and let cars to pass one by one every 20 minutes or so.
Get around
See
- Administrative Palace, tallest building in Romania
- Chain Church
- Capitoline Wolf statue
- Decebal Street synagogue
- Garden of Rome
Do
Buy
Eat
- Restaurant Loren's, Strada Grigore Alexandrescu 20, Szatmárnémeti, ☏ +40 374 019 355. Restaurant Loren is a good option in the center.
Drink
Sleep
There are several good hotels in Satu Mare, both in the center of the town as well as at some distance to the center.
In the central area you will find: Hotel Astoria, Hotel Dana 2, Hotel Poesis and Hotel Aurora.
Good and clean hotels at quite good prices outside of the central area are: Hotel Satu Mare City, Motel Select, Hotel Dana and Hotel Coral.