Bear Watching and Buceri Mountains (Brasov ~ Romania)

October 2019

At its heart Brasov is a medieval town as evident by the old city walls that mostly still exist and at its centre is the Black Church so named for its blackened stonework dating back to a historical fire.  The same stonework has marks were it is reputed soldiers sharpened their swords after prayer and before heading off to war. It is also home to Rope Street the narrowest legal street in Europe.

The major attraction to Brasov for us was a chance to do a Bear Watching tour. Based on research you had a choice of a cheap close to Brasov tour where you would be in a hide and the bears about 40m away or an expensive tour further from Brasov where the bears are 10m from the hide - we chose the latter even though this close to winter it's a bit of a gamble if the bears will show.

We got lucky and this fellow appeared. A 300kg 9 year old male the largest bear in the area. Downside was that while he was present no other bears were going to show. Happily spent a couple of hours watching him (whilst being supplied  with shots of Malinka, the local honey brandy).

Apparently there are currently about 120 bears in the 10 hectares surrounding the hide. Evidence of some of them, was on the path up to the hide, in the form of paw prints and poo.

Brasov is part of Transylvania and Transylvania was part of Hungary until just over 200 years ago. However on the way out to the bear hide we passed through an area referred to as Szekely Land and they seem not to have gotten the message as the primary language spoken is Hungarian, all local signs are in Hungarian and Romanian - which is more than a bit odd as Szekely Land, is pretty much in the centre of Romania.

About 30kms south of Brasov are the Bucegi mountains (a v popular skiing area in the winter) where we did a very scenic day walk - the autumnal colours of the trees are stunning.

Also south of Brasov is the Rasnov Citadel built by the Teutonic Knights in the 1300's as a protection against raiding Tartars. This of course doesn't stop it being promoted as being associated with Vlad Tepes - there is an association because records do indicate that he stayed there once.

For all that it is an impressive fortress that would have been an absolute bastard to attack as can been by the barbican entrance.

Once past the first portcullis you have got to get the second one open whilst the defenders are attacking from the raised walkway.