After a long 2 hours drive from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, to Curtea de Arges and then another 2 hours drive on a hard, suspensions intensive logging road (we had a small car, a Clio), we finally arrived at the starting point of our climb to reach the summit of the Fagaras mountains, Moldoveanu’s peak (2544 meters), deep inside the Carpathian mountain chain.
The journey by car took longer than we had planned due to the difficult logging road (which, I admit, I thought we would not be able to finish) and, by 10 AM, when we finally reached this spot, it was already very hot and humid due to the dense vegetation and lack of any currents.
The nettle here was almost as tall as us, we were all wearing shorts and shirts so we had to be careful, nobody wanted to get sore.
The first thing we saw, after parking precariously on a little ledge and then turning a little bend in the road, was this fantastic view, as if we had just stepped into a painting and found ourselves in a mystical fairy tale, all of a sudden.
The trail was taking us to the base of the climb by crossing a bridge made out of a tree trunk and passing through the nettle fields, along a small abandoned hut named Burnei’s sheep shed or Stana lui Burnei locally.
Now, I could not find any info about this sheep hearder (or locally called Cioban) named Burnei, n’or did I see any sheep around, so I don’t know how this cabin got to be here, but, if I were to choose where to build my own little place, this would certainly be in my top 3 picks. The cabin is the sole construction here, almost like an old wooden guardian standing silently at the base of the mountain, measuring us to see if we are indeed ready for the journey ahead.
It does not have any windows, the door is opened, and, in winter, it might provide a safe shelter for travellers who got lost or who got surprised by nightfall, but, for us, it served as a START point and a fantastic subject for a nice photo.
In the distance, between the two major peaks, we can also spot the small Valea Rea waterfall, slowly driving water between the rocky landscape and creating a river at the base of the mountain that runs just a few meters from the sheep shed and quickly scurried down into the valley behind us. Atop this waterfall would be the next place where we would have a longer rest and I would snap the next photo.. if we could make it all the way up there.
