August was the month of our holiday this year. In the past few years we had all of our holidays outside Romania, in other countries. This year, we chose to travel one more time by car in a tour inside our beautiful country (we did same thing last time when we bought a new car in 2005). And so, because we had once again a new car (the Sonata we bought couple of months ago), we chose to visit some places we’ve never been to before.
The plan was the one below, but we didn’t stick to it completely.
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We had our baby-daughter with us this time and we had to make not too long driving session. Our first stop was at Polovragi Monastery (and cave also)
We then choose to continue the road up the mountain, because on the map there were two lakes up-there: Petrimanu and Galbenu lakes. It was kind of a big mistake because the road became almost impracticable for our car. Being already too late, we’ve decided there is no time to turn back and we’ve continued the drive to our destination, deciding we’ll camp near one of the lakes. Even if the road was difficult, the landscape was breathtaking
In the end, this was a good decision because we came near some folks from Bucharest, which were in a weekend escape in the mountains and they were very well prepared for camping. We had a delicious fire-cooked ciorba, drank some palinca (from my federal reserve 🙂 ) and stood late in the night near a hue camp-fire. Below is the track to reach those two beautiful lakes:
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The initial plan was to turn back same route, but seeing how difficult it was in the previous day, we took another direction.
We went towards Ciungetu and then took the asphalt road to Voineasa, planing to cross once again the Transalpina road (Voineasa – Obarsia Lotrului – Ranca – Novaci). I’ve showed you in Episode 2 this great destination and I won’t insist on pictures now, except some funny ones we took on the peak point.
We’ve rested for one night at Ranca resort and then departed for a spot I wanted so much to visit: Iron Gate National Park. This is the place where Danube river crosses Carpathian mountains, between Romania and Serbia and in some spots called “cazanele Dunarii” it is only 200 m wide because of the vertical mountains walls it passes through. There, the average depts is 75 m and the water speed is 5 m/s. I wouldn’t dare to swim there :). We had a reservation for two nights at a beautiful hotel called Pensiunea Septembrie, situated very close to Orsova, and had a nice time to relax and visit the surroundings.
Next on our list was Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, the old roman capital of Dacia. This province capital was situated only 40 km away from the original capital of Dacia – Sarmizegetusa Regia (near Orastie).
We were so close to Retezat National Park that we decided to go up to spend some time there also. Retezat National Park is one of the most interesting place in Romania and I’ve never been there. Shame on me. There are 20 peaks higher than 2000 m, more than 80 lakes and one third of plant species in Romania can be found there.
On the road up, we met with some 600 sheep and their shepherds
Since our holiday got closer to the end, we decided to visit some friends in Sebes and together to go again up in the mountains near Oasa Lake, in a friend’s Hut. The hut became soon a small kinder-garden because a lot of their friends came with their kids.
We spent last day in Sebes and then departed for other 3 days at a camping at the Black Sea. I took less pictures since we were there only to rest and get some sunbathe.
A quality time and a mix a goodies. Made in RO! It was Super 🙂
