As I mentioned last time, my most recent eastern European ski jolly was to Romania; not a country renowned for its skiing, but somewhere with mountains nonetheless, plus with the added bonus of being a fascinating country, steeped in history and therefore with lots a exploring to be done. Unfortunately it has been a fairly dire winter across the whole of the European continent, and Romania was no exception, but despite the pretty minimal snowpack and obvious recent wind affect, with a bit of imagination and some searching, we managed to have some superb days out.
We were staying in the tiny village of Busteni, which does have a cable car, but no ski area. Theoretically the lift is for hiking and sightseeing only, but with a little internet research and a lot of map studying we discovered that there was a beautiful ski tour across the plateau at the top, with a potentially adventurous and exciting descent through a vast gully back down to the valley. It did indeed turn out to be quite an adventure, and we were slightly wary about the prospect of waking one of Romania’s hibernating bears…! But we had the place to ourselves all day in fairly wild country, and found some great skiing.
Despite day passes being disproportionately high in Romania (around the equivalent of €35/€40), one-way ski tickets are outrageously cheap (€5), leading us to wonder why anyone bothers buying a day pass, given the fairly limited lift-served skiing! So we generally got a lift bump at the start of the day, in neighbouring Sinaia and Azuga, and spent the day exploring with the skins. The weather was wonderful all week, so we may not have found powder heaven, but we saw some spectacular views and thoroughly enjoyed exploring and discovering some new mountains.
Sharon Wray Writing 