Winter is slowly fading away so March seemed like a good idea to spend a weekend in the mountains. The weather conditions seemed good so our choice was the Ciucas Mountains. We left Sibiu one very early Saturday morning to get to the Ciucas Chalet. The Chalet is situated in the Prahova district and reachable by car if you have a 4×4.  As we don’t have one, we left our car somewhere on the road and walk for about 30 minutes. It was quite hard to walk to the chalet as the road is going up and up, but the weather was so fine and nature was getting back to life that it turned out to be quite an enjoyable walk.

The aim of this trip was to conquer the Ciucas Peak (1954m), so after leaving our luggage at the chalet we started the hiking. From the Ciucas Chalet there is a hiking trail and if you follow the red line you will get to the peak in about one hour – one hour and a half.

As spring is coming, everywhere we looked there was still snow that hadn’t melted yet, but also lovely spring flowers enjoying the warm sun.

The Ciucas mountains have the most spectacular shapes I have seen so far in the Romanian mountains. The rocks have been formed by water and wind and they now have round peaks that let you imagine all sorts of figures and shapes.

The mountain was still covered with snow and some parts of the path were a bit difficult to pass, but with a lot of attention we managed to get to our destination without any accidents.

The sky was perfectly clear and sunny and we had a great view over the mountains nearby. So clear that we even spotted the Fagaras mountains.

Our trip to the Ciucas Peak lasted a bit longer than what was mentioned on the sign near the chalet as the view was so incredibly beautiful that we had to stop all the time for pictures.

We just couldn’t take our eyes away from everything that surrounded us.

We finally got to the Ciucas Peak and what else to do when getting there than to enjoy a Ciucas Beer that we carried in our back-packs all the way up. Don’t imagine there is someone up there selling beer 🙂

And here we are, the hiking team.

After having a quick lunch on the peak, we headed back to the chalet, but chose another trail this time. It takes you the same amount of time as for the one we came to the peak, but you get the chance to have another view on the mountains.

A different view, but still spectacular and absolutely breath-taking.

The whole trip lasted about 5 hours considering that we stopped very often for taking photos. There was still quite a lot of snow, but not very deep and it was easy to walk with hiking boots and some hiking sticks. In summer this can be a perfect one day trip, easy for children as well.

If you’re not too tired, in the evening you can get out of the chalet climb high a bit and enjoy the beautiful colors of the sunset.

You can also see the Red Mountain turning red (of course) in the sunset.

I can say for sure that this trip was a delight for body, mind and soul. The landscape was breath-taking, the weather was just perfect and the nature coming back to life after the winter…well, what else would there be needed to enjoy yourself?

The Ciucas Chalet looks very good, it’s newley renovated and offers accommodation and also has a restaurant. We paid 60 LEI/person for one night in a 4 beds rooms, with breakfast included. It’s more than a regular mountain chalet, as it has electricity, running water and all the conditions for a hotel. You can get by car to a certain point and from there either you walk, either you call the staff from the chalet and they pick you up with a 4×4 car.

Here is the photo gallery :

And the map: