"Romania, always surprising" - Balea Lake and Balea Waterfall

Some of my Romanian friends might say while reading this that I am going to start talking about Romania's problems and defects, about the things that bother most of Romanians and that change the image of a gorgeously beautiful country into sometimes a beautiful landscape spoiled by its inhabitants... I guess this happens everywhere...

After being so far away from home for such a long time, many things that I was given the opportunity to see seem to me far more beautiful than they might have looked before...

Therefore, please bare with me for some minutes and let's take a walk into the mountains close to home, let's dive in the fresh air and enjoy the snow still persisting on the highest peaks.

Balea Waterfall and Balea Lake




A glacier lake at 2054m of altitude standing almost motionless and clear to witness the passage of time. To reach the lake, one has to climb the Trasfagarasan, one of the most if not the most extraordinary mountain routes in the country. .. this is a thing that one realizes only when reaching the top. Unlike the usual, where the waterfall goes into a lake, the Balea lake is situated higher in the skies, and the waterfall goes beneath noisy and in a very stong stream throught the rocks and pine trees.

The Trasfagarasan is quite a new road, built only during the communist times and represents a strategic route passing the highest mountains of Romania - the Fagaras Mountains - and following, up a point, some ancient routes.

The temperature at the Balea Lac is usually 10 degrees celsius lower that in my home town for example, due to the great altitude difference. This is why at this time of the year snow was to be seen is the more shadowy areas. Also, as grass is greener and fresher here, many sheep keepers (but not owners - "cioban" being the Romanian word designating the person that takes the sheep of a village and go with them on the mountain for the complete summer. He goes to the villages only once in a while with dairy products, exquisite cheeses -sweet or salty, fresh, fermented or smoked - and changes them for supplies).

I'll leave you with the photos and with my thoughts that this is a place where time seems to have stopped to contemplate the beauty of the scenery.