We woke up for our taxi to the airport that arrived at our home at 2am, and the drive was very fast, arriving at 3:15am! When we arrived at the airport there was almost no lines, in fact I believe that this is the quickest we’ve ever been through airport luggage and security!

Due to the fast lines, we had 2 hours to spare at the airport, which we spent on eating and talking. Our plane went away from gate on time and departed only 15 minutes late, and landing 2h20m later.

We took the shuttle bus to the rental car service and received a manual Blue Ford Focus, which we then took to our first stop of the day – Snagov Monastery, which was a beautiful destination.

We then got hungry as it was already 1:30pm, so we went to Chic Lounge restaurant which was empty before us, and then the rest of our group joined us and filled the restaurant.

We had to get some groceries, so we went ahead and went to a supermarket that looked very bad so we returned and went to a better supermarket, where we really overdid it with our grocery shopping. With our groceries packed, we returned with our hands full to the Pension, and made some meat on the grill, drank some wine, and went to sleep to get some sleep for the next day which would start at 5am since the guide of the rafting we would be doing the next day insisted to start early for the best experience…

Waking up at 5am for a rafting journey is not easy, but we have managed to do it and be ready for the rafting journey that began at 6am. We were driven on a shuttle bus for 15min to the beginning of the rafting route, where we were divided into 2 groups on 2 boats, each with a guide or two.

The rafting itself on the water was about 2 hours, coming right back to our hotel.

We packed our suitcases and drove to our first stop: Cascada Pruncea, and driving from and to it on a very bumpy road.

We then drove to a dam on Lake Siriu, but unfortunately we were not allowed to walk on it and see the views from it.

After the rejection we got back in our car and drove to eat lunch-dinner at Restaurant La Moara, where the food took long as usual in Romania and the service wasn’t really the best.

After eating our meals, we decided to visit a beautiful farm of animals (mostly Bissons) called Valea Zimbrilor.

Waking up in Tinelu after the first night, and eating breakfast was quite nice considering it was trying out something new. After breakfast, we went to the rope park “Parc Aventura Brașov” where there were even signs in Hebrew because of the almost dominant Israeli audience of the park. There we spent almost half a day – until 2pm! Here we divided, due to waiting lines.

After that we drove to a Lidl parking and walked to the old town for lunch at Cartofisserie which was quite honestly a great street food store.

We then walked to a cable car “Tampa” where we met with the rest of the group.

We went up by cable car and went down for a long hour by foot.

Today is quite an active day, even though it only consists of the bear sanctuary and a Jeep tour. We left home at 8:30 for our organized tour that began at 9:30, where we learnt a lot about different bears, and we even adopted one named Grisha – a blonde brown bear that was rescued from captivity in Armenia by the sanctuary.

We then moved on to a quick hop to Zarnesty in order to drink a quick cup of coffee and use the time we have until the Jeep tour begins. Zarnesty is a beautiful little settlement with a little central town square and a couple of coffee shops, that’s it.

We then drove to the meeting point of our Jeep tour where we received our Dacia Dusters and got driving towards different beautiful landscapes and dirt roads.

After lunch, we continued our driving, now visiting a memorial of a helicopter accident of Israeli Air Force in Romania

And even a typical house in a typical Romanian village named Magura.

We then drove to where we met, returned the Dacia’s and took our Ford’s back to go to our hotel in Sacele…

Today is our first day that consists of hiking – we’re going to the Seven Ladders Canyon!

The location is just a short drive away from home. When we arrived, we had to get walking towards the beginning of the canyon which took us about an hour and a half since it was mostly uphill.

We then bought tickets for entry and waited to enter for almost half an hour, and started climbing up the beautiful ladders of the famous canyon. It was beautiful and very unusual – a canyon in the middle of wildlife nature.

We climbed until we finished the beautiful canyon part and got to the forest where we had our sandwich lunch. We walked in the forest back to where we bought the tickets, from where we could return to our cars by a series of zip lines, but we didn’t all meet the age and weight requirements. So we went back to our car by foot, where we decided we were going to reserve a table at a local traditional restaurant called “Mamaliguta”.

We arrived at the central street, barely finding the restaurant, since most of it was underground – like a basement restaurant. Inside was traditional music and images. Although the food wasn’t the tastiest, it was a traditional experience that was great to feel and live. We then went home, to go and get sleep for our next day…

Today is our second hiking day in a row, where we managed to combine culture and physical activity, having breakfast that we cooked in the kitchenette, and driving about an hour due to traffic to our first destination of the day – Peles Castle. The castle is a beautiful one combining an old culture of both beauty and history. We toured around the different rooms including a living room, conference room and other beautiful rooms.

After the gorgeous castle, we wanted to have a snack so we came into a nearby Bierhaus where we had coffee, chocolate, and desserts.

From the Bierhaus, we started walking towards the beginning of our first hike of the day, which also had a historic meaning – The Royal Path was paved for the king back in ancient times so he wouldn’t have to be driven by his horses on “uncomfortable rocks”.

We hiked up the mountain for only an hour. We then had lunch at the top, and went down by the same road.

When we got back in our car, we got driving towards another hiking route to a beautiful waterfall named “Cascada Urlatoarea”. The hike there took us almost an hour since it was mostly uphill. The waterfall was beautiful but really did take a while to get to. Now, that we’ve seen the waterfall, we’re going down to our car, which took us 20 minutes instead of an hour, which was great since we got to the waterfall at 19-00.

Today, our group “reunited” after a day of separation yesterday. We started off our day by a two hour drive towards Cheile Gradiesti, which is a fun park resort, that turned out to be quite a disappointment. Every experience is very short and overpriced.

We then drove to a nearby canyon called “Cheile Dâmbovicioarei” which we driven through with our cars

To get to a homey little restaurant called Restaurant Cerbul which only had 1 waiter – the house owner. We had some delicious meals, and moved on to a cave called “Pestera Dambovicioara”, a beautiful little ice cave.

We then drove towards home, stopped in Bran for ice cream, coffee and refreshment, and even met our Jeep tour guide from Sunday!

While the rest of the families drove home, we decided to go karting. When we arrived at the track after an hour driving from Bran, they told us the track is temporarily closed due to recent rain. But, after 20 minutes they reopened, and we went in. Ron and Dad went twice, while Mom, Mishel and Emily went once because they wanted so. After the karting, we drove home for 20 minutes, ate a cup of yogurt, and went to sleep as preparation for tomorrow’s intensive day…

Today, is a long day. Today we have a lot of driving, hiking and more. We first drove for over 2 hours to our main destination of the day – the start point of our hike: Camping Zanoaga.

We hiked for about 4km and 2.5 hours towards the “finish line” of our hiking – Lacul Scropoasa. It’s a beautiful little lake, that has a very blue-ish color to it, and especially beautiful with the cloudy and rainy weather. But unfortunately, on the way there, it started raining.

But, lucky for us we found a great barbecue truck that was on our way, so we got great lunch and a shelter from the rain.

When the rain passed we went to the waterfall “Cascada Șapte Izvoare” which maybe was a small one, but a very beautiful one, from there we continued to our target – the lake.

We then returned by the same route we came, but this time only in an hour and half, instead of 2.5.

When we got back in our cars, we drove around another lake called “Lacul Bolboci”. This one was a bigger lake, in fact an enormous one. But nothing extra-special in terms of colors.

We then went to an ice cave called “Peștera Ialomiței”, which was quite a large one.

We then drove home for another 2 hours, and went to sleep to get rest for tomorrow’s intensive day…

Today, is an intensive day for a reason – today we’re moving from the city of Brasov, all the way to Sibiu. We started our day with a division of families.

Our first goal for today was the emerald lake. It’s a beautiful lake, which turned out to be not as quiet as we thought. We ate some brunch in a fast food restaurant in the area of the lake to release our stomach from hunger.

We then continued to the beautiful town of Sighisoara. There, we experienced culture under the hot weather.

We went up the popular stairs “The Covered Stairway” leading to “The church on the hill”, and seen the beautiful architecture from above.

After walking around for a little while, we got hungry, so we went to the planned restaurant of Casa Ferdinand, where we did unfortunately have issues with finding meals that matched our needs, but we managed, and had our delicious meals. I recommend the review that opens when you click the blue link.

After we finished our meals, we didn’t really have anything to do, so we walked around town a little more to enjoy it under the cooler weather.

We then headed back to our car, to start heading towards Sibiu, which was about a 2-hour drive away. We drove straight to Hotel Stefani where we spent our 3 nights in the city of Sibiu. We arrived, received our rooms, unpacked our suitcases and bags, and decided to go explore a little bit – in the old town. We drove, parked, and went to the main square “Piata Mare” on foot.

We ate desserts in a very nice place called “Rabbit hole”, even though we were originally planning on going to Cafe Wien, but it didn’t serve desserts. They were delicious, we were full, so we returned to our car, and drove home..

We started our day off by going to the old town of Sibiu again, this time under the sun, and we were all families there. We walked around the Piata Mare square and some even climbed Turnul Sfatului.

We then got ice cream went back to our cars and drove to ASTRA museum which is an outdoors of ancient architecture and life. The museum offered houses to view, an old school, and shortly like a little city with little old houses.

On our way out, we stopped to eat at a truck inside the museum. We then went out, back to our hotel, to get a couple of things for our next attraction of the day – Aria Sibiu Water Park.

We drove for 4 minutes to it, parked, and went inside. Of course, this one doesn’t even compare in size to the Therme that we will visit while we stay in Corbeanca, but it was enjoyable. It had an Olympic pool, and 2 pools for just fun. There were 4 slides, one of which was with tubes. We had fun in there, then headed back to our hotel…

Today we woke up for a long day of adventures, for the better and the worse. We started our with a hike at Cheile Turzii

Then we had the less fun part of the day, an unexpected incident. We drove into a ditch, and well, the rest is history… See for yourself. Luckily, a Bulgarian private tow truck drove by and managed to pick the car up and take it to his private repair shop.

While Dad continued to deal with the car issues and such, we all continued to our next goal of the day – Turda Salt Cave, which was supposed to take way longer than our hike, which it did.

Most of us walked down the long stairs by foot (about 45 floors or so), but there was also an elevator, which we all used on our way up to the exit.

Dad also joined later on, of course after we already did some things in the cave. We were able to find each other very easily since surprisingly, there was even WiFi in the cave.

The mine was very well accommodated, shockingly even toilets were there (yes, toilets that were flushing their way up…).

Together, we did some activities like the Ferris wheel, the boats, and just wandering around.

It was nice, but eventually, we ran out of things to do in the cave, so we headed toward the exit.

We then drove to our longest attraction of the day – Balea Lake.

Most of us went up the mountain, while the other minority stayed at the lake level, and waited for the rest of the group.

We then continued on the Transfagarasan road, for our main attraction of the day – bears on the road. We might’ve seen them in cages in the bear sanctuary, but here we got to see them wandering freely, outside cages, in forests.

We then stopped at the Vidaru Dam for sunset and continued to our dinner spot later on the road, after which we continued to our accommodation for the night. Fun fact is how we barely managed to find it, struggled to enter, and constantly entered a private farmer’s road.

Finally, after 15 days in Romania, we are leaving for our home sweet home – Israel. We passed all security processes relatively quickly for this airport, and boarded the plane

After a quick 2h30m flight, we landed at home, finally, after 15 days.

We then waited for the train, which arrived about 15 minutes later and hopped on a 1h30m journey back to our home train station, from which we took two taxis.