Expedition Bihor and Vladease.

 

Expedition Bihor and Vladease, Romania, 2020

July, 12 – 25, 2020

Piotr Rajski asked me to write a brief reportage about my expedition to Romania. I didn’t take many photos as I had been saving the phone battery as we were usually too far away from all electric plugs.

Our aim was Bihor Mountains and Vladeasa in northwest Romania. And this is our team:

Petr, the leader

Jakub

 

My nice roommate Jitka  as we shared one tent (and sometimes food):

And myself - Ludmila (without photo) – you have met me already:

Petr, Jakub and Jitka had been already experienced Romanian hikers as for myself this was the very first time in Romania.

We started with packing our gears  to Petr’s car in Mohelnice (Moravia, the Czech Republic) on Sunday afternoon, July 12:

As we were going to do backpacking, the car had been loaded with 4 backpacks, 2 cookers, 2 tents and food for 2 weeks.

We drove through Slovakia, Hungary and passed the Hungarian- Romanian borders about 1 am on Monday. As we had crossed the borders, I was so excited that I  began to clap my hands 

We stayed overnight near Oradea town. And this is place where we spent our first night in Romania:

A Romanian guy came to us at the morning and gave us this package of chips and a packed water (about 8 liters). We really appreciated it!

This was my very first meeting with Romanian hospitality and friendliness. We met lots of Romanian people, who were very nice and friendly to us, always keen to start a conversation even if we didn’t know Romanian. Unfortunately, my Romanian vocabulary consisted of several basic words like: Bona zua (Good morning), Bona sera (Good evening), La revedere (Good bye), peine (bread), gem de casa (homemade jam), apa potabile (drinking water) branzea de ovaie (sheep cheese) and palinka (no translation needed I guess).

So, Petr parked the car at camping in La Grajduri – Glavoi on July, 13 and we went for our 3-day backpacking trip. The aim was the Bihor summit (Valfur Bihor or Cucurbata Mare).

There are few people in Romanian mountains but lots of horses and cows

 The locals usually live in these wooden houses

Romania is the proud member of European Union:

Finally, on Tuesday evening we reached the summit. It was cloudy and windy at the top.

We started our second backpacking trip on Sunday evening July, 19. This time, we planned to reach Vladeasa summit (1836 m. above sea level). This time, the weather was beautiful and we were able to enjoy beautiful view.

As you can see, we reached the summit going without backpacks which we deposited at a garden of a cottage. The owners weren’t present at this moment, but we were lucky enough to find our untouched property after our return.

 

Apart from mountains, the Bihor region is famous for its caves. We visited several of them. You can visit them without guide. The male part of the expedition appreciated them, concerning myself I concluded that I am not fan of them. Nevertheless, here is a picture of Cetatile Ponorolui:

I would like to add several pictures illustrating our expedition’s daily routine:

Drying clothes and packing our belongings:

Cooking:

Looking for a water suitable for drinking. This wasn’t an issue as the Bihor mountains are the most watery mountain in Romania. Usually, we poured a disinfection into water.

Studying a map

Enjoying a view:

And this is our favourite campsite for random camping as we spent 3 three nights there. We had animals visitors every morning.

Finally, we spent our last day in mountain going to Pietrali Galbani Rocks, where we could enjoyed the view of the Bihor summit from the distance:

I can highly recommended Romanian to all hikers, as the mountains are beautiful, rarely populated and people are friendly towards strangers.