Hiking in the Buila-Vanturarita

It’s June, and summer is here! Hurray! Among my favourite mountains in Romania is the Buila-Vanturarita National Park. So when I saw my friend Alexandra Puscasu from bloguldecalatorii.ro was planning to go there, I dropped her a line to see if I could join in. Like me, she prefers to hike alone or just with her boyfriend most of the time, but during our joint venture at my book launch last year we had agreed we should hike together sometime. And so we did! Hiking in the Buila-Vanturarita is an absolute treat, especially at this time of year. Have a look!

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First three months: come rain, come shine

I intended to write a reflective post after my first month in Romania, but then all of a sudden two months had passed – and then three. This doesn’t mean time flew – it didn’t exactly. Last year’s start was tough – this one was tougher. When I look at my walks list I am not impressed – I only managed one three-day hike in June, for instance. In terms of kilometres it looks a little better – I did about 240km which is almost half of what I did in total last year and the year before – so it looks like I’m getting somewhere. Although that said, I have no idea how many kilometres I have ahead of me. I can only hope that I’m about half way, since in another three months winter will force me out of the country.

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A week in the Cozia and Buila-Vânturarița

After my hike in the Iezer-Păpușa was cut short by the rain I planned to return there, but the rain wouldn’t stop so I started looking around for alternatives – and settled for a hike in the Cozia and Buila-Vânturarița, after lengthy consultations with the 500th liker of my facebook page. So after two and a half months in and around Brașov I set off for Cârța, a lovely little village in between Brașov and Sibiu at the foot of the imposing Făgăraș mountains. Actually my host, Sorin, drove me there – he happened to have an appointment in Aiud that same day and Cârța was pretty much en route. So that saved me a lot of dragging and sweating.

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