Weather: ☁️☀️☀️☀️☀️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, wraps and cheese from the cheese farm!)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇷🇴🇷🇴 (4 out of 5, tough 4×4 track up to Giumalau peak, then down on a narrow trail through the forest and up again to Rarau)
Hotel: 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ (4 out of 5, nice room and helpful Giumalau peakstaff)
Name of followed trail: E8
We leave Vatra Dornei on a misty morning. Soon after, we start our climb into the forest. With the ascent, the clouds thin. Soon we are above the clouds that hang in the valley, in bright sunlight. We follow E8, and for a short while also the Via Transilvanica, the official long distance trail of Romania. It’s really well marked and has skillfully crafted stone markers along the trail. It seems a well organised path, with an app and all kinds of extra information.
It’s worth looking into for the hikers that read along with us!
We get a glimpse of Giumalau peak and see that we still have quite way to go!
We have lunch before the second part of the ascent, with wraps and the rest of the cheese from the farm.
The second part of the ascent starts gradually in the forest and then goes into the open blueberry fields. From there, the trail is on a 4×4 track that goes up quite steep. It’s a long and tiring walk, but the views are worth it. We meet some berry pickers with their cars, that go up the track quite easily, eventhough they aren’t all 4×4 cars! I guess cars, like people, can do more than we think!
On the other side we go down a steep, shrubby pine tree track. Better than the one we had a few days before, yet still hard work! After that we get to a very nice forest trail and then to a short road section that leads up mt. Rarau. The rocky peaks of Pietrele Doamnei stand high here. We get to our hotel around 17.00. We put on something warm and go for dinner at the terrace restaurant, with great views. Mark got a feast of pork on his plate!
Since breakfast doesn’t start until 8.30, we ask the waitress if we can bring some side dishes like cream, bread, cheese and honey with us. She understands the concept of what we want and helps us make a decent breakfast tray. Really helpful people here!
We go up to our room and have a shower. after that, there is plenty of time to rest and finally catch up with the blogs!
After that, it’s time to sleep!