Over Easter weekend (a 6 day holiday only using 2 days’ of annual leave, a no brainer really) I travelled to Romania, alone, to do some hiking. The plan was simple: fly into Brasov (a small city in Transylvania) and then travel to Piatra Craiului, making a pit stop at Bran Castle (aka Dracula’s castle).
I landed into Brasov just after lunch and caught an Uber (very cheap) to my hotel, dropping my bags before adding a few layers and heading out to explore the city. I only had one night here so I wanted to make the most of it. I got an obligatory holiday gelato and smugly took a photo against the blue sky - take that rain weather forecast. I visited the Black church, which was black and striking from the outside but not worth the ticket price to go inside. I escaped out of the perimeter of the old city to find the river just outside, admiring the small footpath along side it and the arched building over it. I walked up the steps to the White tower and then along to the Black tower. Both had excellent views of the city - the small old town full of coloured buildings built around the slightly off centre, huge black church and expansive square, and the tree-filled hill which ran across the opposite border of the city, with the Hollywood-style “Brasov” sign. At the Black tower I met Jero - perhaps the only other solo traveller in the city - who was a lovely Argentinian guy now living in Spain. I agreed to his offer to continue our explorations together, heading back down the steps, across the river and across the threshold into the old city. We visited the tower gate to the city and the Synagogue. We tried to visit the narrowest street in Europe (or one of them) but this was boarded up for maintenance. We ended up back in the main square, with the sights of Brasov having run out. As it was really rather sunny at this point we decided what we clearly had to do was visit one of the restaurants with tables out on the square and have a glass of cold, Romanian white wine. And so we did. It was gorgeous and it made me feel like I was on a horizontal holiday in Spain rather than a hiking trip in the Romanian mountains. WhichI wasn’t too mad about. We chatted about our lives and relationships in the way that you somehow only can with a fellow traveller you have only just met and know you will never see again after this one evening. A plummet into the intimate topics with no need to censor or twist the details to make you come out looking good. We moved from wine to dinner and I had my first taste of Romanian food. In a word, cabbagey. Back at my hotel, I enjoyed a lovely night’s sleep after fighting with the external wooden blinds for an embarrassingly long period of time (eventually giving in and asking ChatGPT to help me work out how to close them).
After a slightly strange hotel breakfast, I continued my wanderings of Brasov and prepared myself for the mountains - taking out some cash and having a proper coffee. I caught an uber to the bus station and then the bus on to Bran. The journey took 45 minutes and deposited me right outside the infamous Bran castle. I explored the castle for a few hours (it’s not very big), enjoying the history and architecture but not the annoying American tourists. I took the incredibly old elevator (installed in 1937!) down to the basement / dungeons to be popped back out in gardens, very exciting but probably not worth the £4 I paid. I spotted a hill opposite the castle and went to climb it for the perfect photo. This was a little muddier and a little steeper than expected, but I survived and made it back down just as it started to rain (guess the weather forecast had to be at least a little bit right). I found shelter in a restaurant and enjoyed pork knuckle soup (oddly, still very cabbagey) and papnasi (incredible cheesecake doughnuts). Despite the continuous rain, I headed back out to try and order an uber to the neighbouring town of Zarnesti, where I’d stay that night before hiking into the national park the next morning. The uber took a long time and so I stole some shelter under the canopy of a little shop, until the shop keeper made me leave and wait in the rain (grumpy man). My guesthouse in Zarnesti was fine and the owner was so incredibly lovely and friendly. Genuinely couldn’t do more to help you. I got to my room and lay down to the sound of rain and immediately fell asleep for an hour. On waking, I was met with a pizza cooked by the owner. I guess there had been some confusion on my earlier non-committed response to her offer of cooking me a “traditional Romanian pizza”. The issue was I was in no way hungry yet (having had a very late lunch) and also wanted to go out for dinner. So, after a problem solving call with Coen, I decided to keep the pizza and have it for lunch over the next few days whilst hiking and still go out for food that night. I borrowed an umbrella and headed to the high street, which was utterly deserted. Just like the restaurant. I was the only customer and enjoyed my cabbage based meal whilst reading my book. I popped into the supermarket on my way back to get supplies - nuts, biscuits, oranges and dairylee triangles (a staple breakfast food here it seemed which reminded me of how tasty they are).
After a few slices of the pizza for breakfast, I set off on my hike with all my belongings. The guesthouse owner insisted I take their bear spray which was the size of a medium-sized fire extinguisher, but after discussing with her husband who advised the spray wasn’t really necessary, I took just their whistle. I had thought the bears would still be hibernating, but clearly not…
Happy with the blue sky above and the map in my hand (purchased in Brasov), I left Zarnesti behind and entered the national park. The path started out fine, winding up a field and then along a river up through a wooded valley. Then it forked up right, leaving the wider valley to follow a ravine. This is when the path started to become far from fine. The description of the path on the map assured me of “light scrambling” up a rocky path but this was made a lot trickier by the existence of ice and then a thin layer of snow, and then a slightly thicker layer of snow, until all of a sudden I was thigh deep in snow. It was a mission to climb up the 1600m elevation gain through the narrow ravine to the top of the ridge line. For perspective, this section was around 4km long which would take me less than an hour if flat (and without snow), but this took me over 3 hours. I was a little scared of the conditions, but seeing two men make their way down the hill and one man go up in front of me, assured me that it was passable. I was also able to clearly see the way due to their footprints in the snow, and use them to walk in to avoid having to constantly push through the metre deep drifts. What was making me increasingly scared was the thought of how I would get back down in a few days. Going up was one thing, I could climb using my hands and lean into the steep rock easily, so falling / slipping wasn’t an issue. But going down without crampons or poles would be pretty lethal. When I (finally) reached the ridgeline after questioning what on earth I was doing several times (like, seriously, could I not have gone for a weekend of wine drinking in the south of France with friends rather than hiking in snow up a cliff alone?), I spotted a little path up to the viewpoint. Seeing as I’d dragged myself this far, I dragged myself the final few metres up to this. My jaw literally dropped as I took in the view to my right - a mountain, right there! - and to my left - a towering ridgeline, also right there! The view directly down was also impressive, being the steep path (/cliff) I’d come up and the town way down below. I enjoyed the sun on my skin and watched the clouds move across the mountains as I ate an incredibly well-deserved biscuit. As the clouds moved in I got a wiggle on and began to head down the other side of the ridge to find Cabana Cumatura, which is where I’d be spending the night. The path was still thick with snow and ice and zig-zagged through a forest. The fear of bears replaced my fear of getting back down and I played some music out loud as recommended (so I wouldn’t accidentally sneak up on one and scare it). The going was almost as slow as the way up as I tried not to slip. After around 6 hours of hiking (truly an insane amount of time to walk 8km) I made it to the Cabana and collapsed onto the bench in the sun with a hot chocolate.
The Cabana was beautiful - a huge wooden building with two floors and an alpine feel. Downstairs it had a kitchen where the Nepalese workers cooked up cabbage stews, fed to hikers who sat in the warmth of the wood panelled dining room. Upstairs there were several rooms, and my dorm room was filled with 8 bunk beds and a strange stove contraption. I left my stuff in here and took my smaller daypack back downstairs. Whilst I sat and recovered from my traumatic hike up, I saw a family with a young child appear, all of them in trainers. Now this filled me with incredible hope, clearly there were easier ways to get up to the Cabana than the one I had taken, and so I wouldn’t die on my hike back down! I asked the family which way they had come, and warned them not to go back down the way I’d come. Relieved, I set out for a little afternoon walk to a meadow I could see from the Cabana. There was still a fair amount of snow and ice on this trail, but nothing like the previous one. When I returned an hour or so later, just before it got dark, I was met with two other travellers in my room. They were two uni students from Finsbury Park (small world) who had not planned to stay the night, but, after taking the same path up as I did, were so traumatised by the experience that they couldn’t face walking back down that day (nor did they really have time before it got dark). They were completely unprepared for the night, however, with dripping clothes from falling in the snow and no dry items to wear. One of them wore contact lenses and didn’t have fresh ones for the morning, or anything to keep the current ones in overnight, meaning he had to keep them in and try to sleep with his eyes open! A complete disaster really, poor lads.
The next morning I wished good luck to the two boys as they left to descend back to civilisation and I did some yoga before leaving on my own hike for the day. I would stay for a second night at the Cabana so could leave most of my stuff behind, only taking some snacks, layers and other essentials (including the bear whistle). I had planned a route, which was an out and back with a loop at the end, and set myself 4 hours before I would turn around (to make sure I’d get back before dark). Time slipped by effortlessly as a crunched my way through the snow and gingerly slid down patches of ice. The route took me through forests of short pine trees; across small streams; down snowless woodland hills; across meadows covered with knee deep snow; and along a river which was also covered in thick snow (meaning I only discovered the river aspect when my foot, at one point, pushed all the way through the snow and plunged into the icy water hiding beneath). I turned around exactly on time, after finding a non-snowy patch to sit and eat my pizza for lunch. It was at this point that, after seeing only one couple for the entirety of the morning, I was engulfed by around 30 hikers. I followed their group and chatted to the guys at the back, who seemed excited to meet a foreigner and to tell me about their previous visits to the UK. The group, they told me, was a social group from Bucharest which organised all sorts of activities to get people together - basically a friend making group. Very cute! We took different paths shortly after this, and I left the crowd behind and made my way around the loop before rejoining my earlier path and retracing my steps back to the Cabana. No bears (luckily!), but a few potential bear footprints and a beautiful woodpecker which was so unbothered by me that he let me get incredibly close whilst he pecked away. I spent the rest of the day soaking in the last of the sun, reading my book and watching some netflix whilst cuddling with the Cabana cats, and eating, you guessed it, a cabbage based meal for dinner. I also treated myself to a piece of apple cake which I saw some other hikers eating after dinner, which had a piece of paper hidden inside sort of like a fortune cookie. The text was in Romanian and either made no sense, or google translate failed miserably.
My final day in the mountains was treated to full sun and without a cloud in the sky - at last! I set off down the mountain, following a (hopefully) easy and safe route. The initial section took me through woodland and was dotted with patches of ice still, until I was out in the open of a meadow. I decided this was the perfect spot for a barefoot frolic and some yoga, which it was. Out of breath but stretched out, I re-laced my boots and continued all the way down noting the much higher number of other hikers I saw as an indicator that this was indeed an easier route. It was downhill all the way back down to a road, and I felt sorry for the hikers coming up the hill, which was still incredibly steep if not quite at the cliff-level of my route up. I gave a middle finger to the last patch of snow, just to satisfy an inner need, and revelled at the sight of flowers and grass and mud. I hit the road and headed into Zarnesti to drop my borrowed whistle back at the guesthouse. I was rewarded with coffee and cake for my efforts and a hug from the owner’s daughter. I set my sights on my hotel for this final night, which was still several hours of hiking away, through the rolling hills of the lower altitudes. To avoid having to walk back along the road, I located some paths on my map which took me over a hill rather than around it. Terrible idea it turned out, as after getting lost twice, scaling another cliff (this time no snow, but gritty mud which slid from under each foot with no warning), and shouting at aggressive farm dogs, I made it back to a road and swore to stay on it for the rest of the day. Whilst sat on the edge of this road having a breather (read: crumbling in relief to still be alive) I looked up to see two guys walking past me - it was none other than the Finsbury Park boys from the Cabana! Good to see they’d survived in any case, although it didn’t sound like they’d enjoyed their way down too much… I marched through the last 2 hours of hiking, following small roads and dirt tracks past small houses, small herds of sheep and small churches all the way to Pestera and just beyond to my hotel. It was a gorgeous little (but fancy) wellness retreat centre which I’d got for cheap as I booked so last minute. I have never been so happy to see a bed than when I opened my hotel room and saw the plumpest, hugest, bed in the world. But no time to lie down yet, as I had 30 minutes until the evening yoga class! So I opted to shower (it had been 3 days after all) instead and then head to the class. It was a lovely, slow flow and afterwards I sat and drank tea with the yoga teacher and watched the sunset. We spoke about our love for yoga and how it wove through our lives. When the sun disappeared behind the mountains I took myself to dinner at the in-situ restaurant and enjoyed a beef stew, which was thankfully non-cabbagey. Despite being exhausted, there was something I simply had to do before bed. Use the hot tub. So I got back into my sweaty sports bra (not ideal but sadly I didn’t think to pack a bikini) and enjoyed a private hot tub experience, with a blanket of stars overhead and the outline of mountains in the distance. Beautiful. I also had a quick sauna session, but then it really was time for bed.
One final slow morning of another yoga class, breakfast and then relaxing on the terrace with a coffee and my book. A final hour of walking to the nearest town with a bus to Brasov (sticking to the road of course). A final explore of Brasov, including some souvenir shopping, exchanging my leftover Romanian currency (I had hugely overestimated how much I would need) into Euros, and a final meal (still cabbagey!). And then the flight home from one of the smallest airports I have ever used.
An interesting trip. Overall, very enjoyable and very memorable. In certain moments, it did make me question my judgement and what on earth I was doing. Is that a sign of a great trip? Unsure.
Also, I solved the mystery of why all food tasted like cabbage, despite not visibly including cabbage. I asked the waiter of my final meal why the meatball soup I had ordered tasted similar to a cabbage stew I’d had previously. He told me - happily - that the soup included the juice from fermented cabbages. I “ahhed” and nodded, internally screaming “why?????”.