Stan’s Valley is an adventure. And a beauty. And unbelievable landscapes. And recently new ladders and climbing props have been added all over the valley so we had to do it. The red circle path starts somewhere on the Transfagarasan road, close to the Vidraru dam. It takes you about 4 hours to go through the valley from one part to the other and also a bit of attention. But what you will see once starting your journey is just worth every effort.

It’s a spectacular place, with beautiful waterfalls and small lakes where you just feel like having a nice refreshing bath. Sometimes you have to go directly through the water, but don’t worry, it’s not that deep.

Sometimes you have to climb on rocks and watch you step so that you don’t fall in the water.

Everywhere you go you either climb ladders…

Or even go through the river directly. So better bring some hiking sandals with you.

It’s hard to describe how the valley looks. It’s for sure something I have not yet seen in Romania. We had a perfect weather and we also got there just after a quite long period of raining which made the view even more spectacular as the river and the waterfalls where bigger.

The red circle path goes only one way, so you don’t have to turn back through the valley once again. Although I am sure that once you get there, you would really like that. After passing the valley the path takes us to a forest, where we stopped for a couple of minutes to take a break and have a snack.

From here on we leave the river aside and walk through the woods. At a certain point there is also a spring with fresh water (as if we weren’t surrounded with water for the last 2 and a half hours). Then we got to a beautiful, green glade where we stopped for lunch.

And from here in just about another hour we get to the Vidraru Lake and Dam. The Vidraru Lake is an artificial lake with 465 million cubic metres of water, with a length of 10.3 km and a width of 2.2 km, thus accumulating a total area of 870 hectares and maximum depth of 155 metres. Underground power station is situated in massive Cetatuia to a depth of 104 meters and can provide annual energy production of 400 GWh.

From the lake we had to go back to where we started the trip and where we left the car. We actually walked in a circle. Down below you will also see a map. But enough with the words, just take a look a the photos and it will compensate all the words.

Here is the map:

And here is a picture with how the trail actually goes. It’s not 100% accurate, but you get the picture. We started from point A on the red line, continues on the main road (green line) and got back to point A again.