CARPATHIAN CULTURE AND WILDLIFE An amazingly beautiful part of the world. Waking up to the view of rolling hills dotted with colourful houses and the more distant mountains covered with pine and beech forest was heart-lifting.
Superb trip with excellent walking and lots of bears Villa Hermani is an excellent base for this trip, which combines interesting walks with opportunities to see bears in their natural habitat. We also visited a bear sanctuary to understand the atrocious conditions under which some bears have been abused by circuses and other 'tourist/entertainment' businesses.
From start to finish the trip was great. Overnighted at a hotel just outside Heathrow. British Airways flight from Terminal 5 couldn't have been better. BA really efficient and comfortable; Terminal 5 speedy, efficient and without hassle. Thomas, the group leader met us in Bucharest airport and the first clue about what was to come came when he announced we transfer from the mini coach to two 4x4 minibuses to ascend to the hotel. Katharine, the owner/manager of the hotel was superb. All staff were very friendly, serving excellent food and the accommodation was nice and cosily comfortable. The snowshoeing was lovely, we were blessed with good weather and in the first part of the week temperatures of about -10C/-15C which meant light fluffy snow. The walking was at times quite demanding and having undertaken the Finland trip previously (moderate) I felt Transylvania was a good moderate. I'd never visited Romania before nor the Carpathian mountains. Romania was unspoiled, "untouristy" and the mountains were beautiful. I'd happily return to the area in the Spring or Autumn to see another season. There were some serious climbers in our group, a number of whom were eager to come back and "do" some of the peaks/ridges. The whole group, which had quite an age range, got on well together with no awkward moments.