When we started to learn Romanian, we built sentences about imaginary weekends to develop our vocabulary. We often referred to having gone to “la munte” (to the mountains). But being in the country now, we need to be a little bit more specific about which part of the Romanian’s Carpathians mountains you will go because you will be asked without fail.
The Carpathians mountains range stretches from the Czech Republic through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and ends in Romania for 51% of its total area. Within Romania, 3 separate geographical groups have been identified and even within them, sub-ranges are well been defined. Our first dedicated “hiking” trip has been chosen for its hiking trails and the high number of caverns in the Western part (Carpații Occidentali), more specifically in the Trascău Mountains (part of the Apuceni Mountains range).
Nous étions un peu “hors saison” pour profiter pleinement des sentiers et des cavernes. Nous avons eu néanmoins de la chance d’avoir pu fait notre grande randonnée lors une parfaite journée ensoleillée de printemps. Notre “cosy” petit chalet était bien situé dans la petite localité de Sub Piatră, littéralement “Sous la roche. Dès notre arrivée, nous rencontrons les gardiens improvisés des lieux, 3 chiens (bergers Roumain des Carpathes). On dirait qu’ils s’ajustent aux locataires du chalet en savant pertinemment qu’ils auront des restes de table. Mais avec leur sens inné de la protection, ils nous suivent dans le village et dorment relativement proche du chalet. Je leur pardonne leurs aboiements dans la nuit… c’était peut-être pour un ours ou un loup!
But on our long trek the following day, the dogs had no motive to follow us. We departed from the monastery at the altitude of about 600m to end up at our ultimate one at 1200m. Following a couple of different trails for an approximative total of 12 km over 8.5 hours (the last 2 hours being entirely a consequence of my own tiredness and lack of physical fitness), we went through valleys, forests, rock formations to admire the scenery and vast flora and streams. We were prepared to encounter wild life with our bear spray and whistle but we never saw anything except birds.