Hiking in the Carpathians - How?

What seems like one long mountain range around Transilvania, is actually a whole universe of different massifs and ridges: large and tiny ones, steep or gentle, over 2000 m high or just some hundred, with needle forest or meadows on top, white limestone rocks or former volcanic cones... So plenty of beautiful places worth to discover!

You can basically find hiking trails everywhere. At least in the well-known hiking regions that I'm shortly presenting in the next post, they are well and consequently marked after my experience. For longer tours it's a good idea to check if there is a "Cabana": These are usually very cosy, rustic cabins where you can stop for some substantial Romanian food and drink, or even for the night (bring a thin sleeping bag). Less comfy are the shelter or bivouac huts called "Refugiul": There's really nothing inside, but if you bring sleeping bag, matress, cooking stuff and food, you can spend a good night there.

You can find a lot of info about trails and cabanas in each region on https://www.carpati.org/ghid/ (in Romanian...) and also on https://www.karpaten-rumaenien.de/ (in German...). For tour planning I can also really recommend the App "Muntii Nostri" (in English!!). I prefer to have a printed map too (in case something happens to the phone), you can buy them in book stores.

There are also some other inhabitants of the mountains that give a little more adventurous feeling to hiking in the Carpathians, and it took me some time to accept it and adapt! Romania has the largest population of brown bears in Europe. Of course they are basically afraid of humans and avoid to meet us. To be safe you should always go in groups of at least 4 people (or where a lot of other people are hiking) and make some continuous noise - with bear bells, talking, singing, ... On the other hand it's much more probable to have an encounter with the quite intimidating sheperd dogs: Then just stay in a group and walk around them confidently in a distance without sudden movements. They only want to protect their herd!