Romania trip - Sinaia

In spring of 2015 I had a two months long trip to Romania and Bulgaria where I spent about two weeks hiking and travelling. Two weeks I was in Romania with a friend, and rest of the time I was hiking solo and travelling in Bulgaria. Here I will share my first part of the trip - hopefully it will inspire someone to enjoy Romanian's mountains and towns.
After arriving to Bucharest at night and getting some sleep the plan was to take a train to a town named Sinaia about 130km north. We spent half a day enjoying Bucharest and getting gear and supplies for the hike (local internet sim, gas for stove and of course some tea). The stay in Bucharest was short but I enjoyed it very much. The food was great, the city's centre was clean, photogenic and easy to navigate and even the weather was in our favour.

Palace of the Parliament

Memorial of Rebirth

On our way to Sinaia we already saw what was coming - the trains from north were all covered in snow and we got mentally prepared for colder weather and snowy conditions.
Sinaia looked very pretty - a nice and clean small town located in a valley just below the Bucegi National park - our first destination. It was a passover evening and we celebrated it with a good meal and a bottle of a very nice semi dry rose wine, saving local made cherry liquor and other treats for the hike. The wine and beer in Romania were by the way a super pleasant surprise for me.

Sinaia from above

Sinaia - near the Castles

We started our hike with a pretty steep ascend to the mountains from elevation of about 800m in Sinaia to the higher ski area at 2000m, where most of the mountain trails intersected. There were still some skiers and plenty of snow up high, but it was definitely the end of the season. In general the path was much snowier than we expected but thankfully the second part of the hike, to Cabana Babele was flatter and went through a beautiful hilly ridge, partly marked with snow poles. The cabin itself laid at elevation of about 2200m and was surrounded with beautiful mountains and there were some curious boulders nearby, one of them called Sfinxul (Sphinx).

View from Hut Babelle

The great white

Boulders near Babele

I was aided by my phone's GPS to navigate, but the path was pretty easy to follow. It was a beautiful day to walk in the snow - not too hot and not too cold and the view from above was more than I could ask for. Clean, white sheet with nothing but green plains down in the valley and more mountains ahead. The Babel hut appeared closed and we almost turned down to a nearby village, but my friend phoned the hut keepers and the door magically opened. There were two ladies and a girl who kept the hut and they welcomed us to the sturdy and warm building and we were even able to dine with a meatballs soup and hot wine (a recommended treat for a traveller in Romania). There was also this huge snow dog that the girl let us to pet after next morning's breakfast. We called it Ghost in honour of Jon Snow's direwolf.

Ghost - photo by Veronika

We returned to Sinaia to visit the Castles and head to out next hike - Fagaras mountains.

Sinaia Castle

But as it happens in mountains, it became very snowy and a local guide told us that there was a six meters snowfall in the last few days at the Fagaras and we really shouldn't go. So we just hiked near Sinaia and enjoyed the fresh and soft snow.

Fresh snow in Sinaia

Sinaia - View from above

It snowed the next night and day, and according the forecast it was supposed to be snowy in the next five days both in Bucegi and in Fagaras, so we decided to change our plans a bit and head north-west to Sigisoara and later to Cluj-Napoca.
I more than enjoyed my stay in the Bucegi and Sinaia - walking through the snowy mountains was an amazing experience for me. The views, food wine and atmosphere made Sinaia a place I definitely would like to visit again some day.

Sinaia train station