I Love You Romania

Trip Report: Sapte Scari Canyon, Piatra Mare Mountains

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:33:30 PST

After a few months with week-ends spent on the motorcycle, I really need it a walk in the mountains. Not too near, not too far, not too easy, not too hard, The Seven Ladders Canyon was the perfect choice. It took us 2 hours to get there from the Dambu Morii Chalet. I was very pleased to see so many young people and kids on the way up. Because the temperature was below O⁰ Celsius, there was some snow and some ice, as you can see in the photos.

Well equipped, we followed the trail through the forest up to 980 meters. The canyon is located in the middle-western part of the Piatra Mare Mountains, on the Seven Ladders River. The trail in the forest follows and blends with the river path.

Once you reach the bottom of the ladders, you can choose between climbing up or going back. For us, there was no doubt that we must climb, even if it was a bit cold and kind of icy :)… Beware, the ladder is slippery!

These are the greatest and the most spectacular gorges of the whole Piatra Mare Mountains. Their length is 160 meters with a level difference of 58 meters. The first ladder, going upwards, has a height of 8 meters, followed by another 8 ladders. The longest one has a height of about 12 meters.

Some of the ladders were broken, but still we could pass by easy.

The water makes spectacular cascades in the hill.

These are footprints made by humans that passed by during the years. I was very impressed by those.

From the top, then follow the red sign to go back home.

GPS coordinates:
- altitude 45.57174101356545
- longitude 25.698468399047897

(c) Amalia Ciuraru. All rights reserved.

Wild Carpathia: A BBC quality production on the hidden treasures of Romania

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:43:18 PST

Filming the Last Untouched European Wilderness

"Wild Carpathia is a stunning documentary about a little-known part of Europe. Romania has a huge virtually-untouched area of mountains almost the size of Britain. It is the heavily-forested home to some of Europe's most exciting species, including alpine Chamois, and particularly large carnivores like Brown Bears, Wolves and the elusive Lynx. Much of the area is a time-capsule with an almost-medieval life-style." (http://www.earthtimes.org/)

I highly recommend you watch this documentary. Great quality. Thank you BBC!

The documentary is broadcasted on the Travel Channel or you can find some references on the internet (TV recording with Romanian subtitles at http://vimeo.com/32030606). If you really enjoy the show you can buy the DVD at http://www.travelchannel.co.uk/travelshop/products.asp?ProductID=208

I love Parang mountains! :)

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:10:52 PST

Here below you will find posted 15 of my thousand reasons for loving the Parang mountains and considering it the most beautiful place i've ever seen.

To get there, you need to take the train to Petrosani, then preferably get a cab to take you to the lift and... that's it. Start climbing. Or you can go on the Transalpina and climb from Obarsia Lotrului cabin, where you can also find accomodation.

Parang looks a lot like his neighbour - Retezat, but is less rocky and far greener and, because of that, pleasent. For me, at least.

There are lots of things to say about this surprisingly beautiful mountain: lakes, cliffs, various flowers, of all colours, the hundred years old undisturbed juniper trees "forests". And the blueberrys. And the many ice cold crystal clear springs we had to cross along the way.

Tents at 6 a.m. Sensation of sleeping in a valley no one had set foot in years... priceless. :)

The Green Lake. It's supposed to have a blue-greenish colour, but it wasn't that sunny so we only saw an extremly clear water.

The sea of clouds, one of my favourite things.

Calcescu lake.

ice cold water we had no choice but cross barefoot and the place where we pretty much said good bye to the mountain and started facing civilisation again.

What do you like about Romania?

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:44:31 PDT

What do you like about Romania? What don't you like about Romania? To get you inspired: here's an interesting opinion from an US expat

http://lizspangler.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-i-will-miss-and-not-miss-about.html

(Now) free in the Kindle store: a book on the Romanian cuisine, the Romanian culture

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:00:27 PDT

"A brilliant cultural and culinary history of this little-known country . . . a collection of recipes to be treasured, tested, and enjoyed. -- George Lang, owner, Cafe de Artistes - New York

http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Romania-Glimpses-Literature-ebook/dp/B002C1AG7M/

Cruising Romania!

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:52:25 PDT

Romania is getting on the Europe's river cruise map. I've just found out about these guys at Viking River Cruise and they have 3 offers that depart/arrive in Romania.

1. Amsterdam,NL to Bucharest,RO (Bucharest to Amsterdam)
2. Passau,DE to Bucharest,RO (Bucharest to Passau)
3. Budapest,HU to Bucharest,RO (Bucharest to Budapest)

http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/regions/europe/countries/romania/index.aspx

This remembers me of the very old strategic project: Bucharest-Danube canal, an eco-travel solution to connect North See and Bucharest through Rhine - Main - Danube.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube%E2%80%93Bucharest_Canal

EcoTravel: Bike Tours in Romania

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Sat, 14 May 2011 06:36:55 PDT

There are some guys that organize bike tours in Romania. You might want to have a look here
http://en.romaniabybike.com/en/

For example this Transfagarasan route seems exciting to me.
http://en.romaniabybike.com/en/climb-3-mountains-in-5-days

Although it's not clear if they provide you the bike or not 205euro (accommodation and transportation included) seems ok. It would be a pity not to provide bikes - I don't expect an average foreign tourist to ship her bike to Romania for a 5 day trip.

Retezat forests

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 02:45:21 PST

At the begining of the road, we passed through what those guys call "the magic forest". They could not be more wright. :) The road to Gentiana cabin looks like it was "built" by the Grimm Brothers. As we were expecting at any point to meet a leprechaun guarding his pot of gold, we ran into something looking like Baba Yaga's hut. :) Check that up below:

The hut of Baba Yaga

and it's guardians

Green is the colour. Too bad i'm not such a good photographer and the light and angles played some ugly tricks.

The stoned forest. Be silent, or you'll wake Them up.

Rocks and sights of Retezat's highest picks

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:55:04 PST

Retezat - colours of the almost 80 glaciar lakes

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:25:18 PST

Your favorite touristic destination

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:53:17 PDT

Let's say someone wants to visit Romania, but he/she doesn't have any clue about what's worth visiting here. What would you recommend him/her to visit in Romania? Vote for you favorite city, your favorite touristic destination in Romania.

Any better recommendation? Comment on this post and let us know about it :)

P.S The polls are in the right side of the page! Multiple choices allowed!

Cycling in Eastern Europe

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:12:45 PDT

An e-mail that I've got recently from Josh: "..a short animated documentary I made about cycling across Eastern Europe (form Berlin to Istanbul). A large part of the film is set in Romania - needless to say I had a great time there"

Au Soleil (To The Sun) from Josh Wedlake on Vimeo.

Macin Mountains - From Pricopanu to Greci

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:10:26 PDT

After years of waiting this trip, i'm glad to introduce you to the oldest (and shortest) mountains in Romania - the Macin Mountains. They are hercinic mountains, which appeared in the same time as the Scottish Vosgi Mountains. Initialy they were 3000 meters tall. Now their tallest pick - Greci, are under 500 meters.

It's pretty easy to get there, we choosed a way from Bucharest to Macin village, by a special microbus we found somewhere near the Basarab train station. From the village there's only 5 kilometres to the camping place.
We expected, in this trip, to see nice sights for low effort and to meet some of the amazingly rich flora and fauna of the area: turtles, bugs, snakes, foxes, eagles, lizzards, ground squirrels etc. And we did meet, most of them. Very interesting place to visit.
Important advice: beware of snakes and of your water supplies. There are only few springs, not all of them are good to drink from and the water tastes pretty bad in most of them.

Ok, let's roll!

Locust. One of the 40 pieces who dwelled on my tent that night.

wild mint field.

View from Pricopanu top.

stone flowers

There will be natives watching you! Beware! This guy is not poisonous, but it's evil cousin, the horned viper, living wright in the neighbourhood is.

View from an old granit qarry.

Those rocks are called dwarves because of their shape.

A species of fluffy grass. In the area there's also a tree called "fluffy oak", but i don't have a picture of it. sorry :d

old rocks - old bones

here's a "spitting cricket" specimen, this one is a baby, grown ups are about twice larger (about a thumb).

One of the many turtles we've found on the road.

Greci village coming up soon. Very good news, as we've ran out of water.

the white guardian, waiting for us tu begin our supper.

Being an "animal friendly person" is definitely a must in the area :)

Wild peonies on Greci summit.

View from Greci/ Tutuiatu summit (467 m)They say you cand see Ukraine from there and also the Danube and part of it's delta.

This is better than the Stelvio. This is the best road in the world.

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:29:55 PDT

Nice clip about Top Gear's trip to Romania. House of Parliament and Transfaragaran Road among the other. Enjoy the ride through Romania.

Top Gear Transfagarasan Romania (2009) Amazing from BOMBJACK on Vimeo.

George Enescu

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:46:31 PDT

Today I received a mail from my brother. Suprize! It was not one of those stupid jokes that are exchanged via e-mail. Ok, what else?

Here's the story: he went for a Thursday after work beer into a classic rock pub in Bucharest. Here, two guys playing Romanian classical music using one electric violin and one acoustic guitar. He got impressed to tears (exaggerating a little bit, but close to that) when he discovered once again the music of the greatest Romanian composer: George Enescu. So he thought it might be a good idea to share it with the ILoveYouRomania.com community.

I did some checks and indeed it is worth sharing. His work is really great! If you have the patience to listen to it all the way to the end you will see (hear, in fact) what I mean.

Inspired from Romanian folk music and, probably, most popular compositions of George Enescu: Romanian Rhapsodies (1901-2) Enjoy!

A good starting point to get more information about Gerge Enescu[1] and the classical music festival held in his memoriam every second year in Bucharest[2]. Next edition between 1 - 25 September 2011

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Enescu
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Enescu_Festival

NYT - Travel Romania

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:16:53 PST

Just have a look on the NYT travel website and you realize that there's not much about Romania. Less than 20 articles in 20 years. Hm.. Maybe we should help them with more tips & tricks about travel in Romania

ILoveYouRomania wants you!

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:48:27 PDT

I was just looking on the recent statistics concerning the traffic we receive. It's amazing how we still receive the "more or less" same amount of traffic as 6months ago considering that the last post was available on the website 3months ago. We have to do something. We can not disapoint people who come back to the site and expect something new..

That's why we need to extend.. So it's public anouncement. We are looking for contributors!

We want you to help us show Romania the way you see it when travelling.. Rolling hills of Bucovina, unique Danube Delta or whatever place you prefer for your weekend trips/holidays.

http://www.iloveyouromania.com/

Enjoy summer

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:24:01 PDT

Sibiu - Let's enjoy spring/summer time :)

Sibiu - City Hall

Sibiu - Eye House

More photos from Sibiu

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:02:01 PDT

Sibiu - Large Square

Sibiu - Large Square

Sibiu - Nice street to have walk.. Lots of coffee shops, restaurants, pubs..

* special thanks to Irina for the pictures

Apuseni Countryside

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:26:00 PDT

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Relaxing views :)

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Nice courtyard

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - View from the B&B

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Lots of good B&Bs in the area.. very hospitable people

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Lots of good B&Bs in the area.. cheap accommodation, tasteful food..

Apuseni Countryside

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:14:00 PDT

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Apuseni Region

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - River

Albac, Alba - Countryside - Beehouse

Albac, Alba - Romanian Countryside - Fence

* special thanks to Irina for the pictures

Constanta – an architectural view (III)

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:22:55 PDT

Constanta - Carol I Mosque. Also known as the Great Mahmudiye Mosque, this muslim church was built between 1910-1912, during the reign of King Carol I. The monument had a model in Konia Mosque from Analotia, Turkey. You cand see it from Ovid’s Square.

Constanta - The mosque is the first building in Romania made of reinforced concrete. It is designed in Egyptian-Byzantine style, with some Romanian architectural features.

Constanta - Carol I Mosque - Side view.

Constanta - Carol I Mosque. The minaret (50 m high) is built in Moorish style.

Constanta – an architectural view (II)

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:22:12 PDT

Constanta - The House with Lions. It is a villa, historical building, situated close to Ovid’s Square.

Constanta - The House with Lions. The name comes from the four columns on the facade with sculptured lions on top.

Constanta - The House with Lions. It is said that, in the 1930's, it was a meeting place for the Constanta Masonic Lodge.

Constanta – an architectural view (I)

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:21:04 PDT

Constanta - Ovid's Statue - Situated in front of the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, in Ovid’s Square, the statue honours the Roman poet, Publius Ovidius Naso, who was exiled to Tomis (today Constanta) in 8 AD. It was designed in 1887 by the Italian sculptor Ettore Ferrari.

Constanta - The Genoese Lighthouse - It was built in 1300 by the Genoese merchants and restored in 1858-1860. The lighthouse (8 m high) had been functional until 1913. It is very close to the Casino (aprox. 5 minutes' walk).

Bear's Cave

mihai@iloveyouromania.com (Mihai) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:07:05 PDT

Bihor - Bear's Cave - Probably the most beautiful cave I've been to.

Bihor - Bear's Cave - A bear skeleton .. presumably living here millions years ago

Bihor - Bear's Cave - Some bones..

Bihor - Bear's Cave - Wide view