Temperatures expected to be 100°+F in Bucharest, so the mountains semed a good place to go. A Romanian guy we met on a hike in Bulgaria said we should visit Peleş Castle, so we hopped a train to Sinaia, a lovely tourist town in the Carpathians.
The Sinaia infobooth guy was very helpful with local hike information, providing a flyer about avoiding bears (1), and noting that treeline was at 1,700 meters (to help stay in the shade).
Being early afternoon and hot, we opted to take the gondola up to the Carpathian ridge. The base station was about a mile and 600 feet up from the town. A cooling spring in the town provided a nice respite on the walk up.
The gondola quickly brought us well above treeline to 2,100 meters. At 7,000 feet, the air was fresh and 75°F. We wandered around the summit, descending back to town in time for dinner.
(1) A week ago, a young woman was killed on a narrow trail when she fell into a ravine trying to avoid the bear. The best advice is to make noise, as the bears prefer to avoid encounters with people. The bears are apparently more troublesome recently because they are bothered by the heat.
No comments:
Post a Comment