Romania travel questions!

Hello there,

I've been reading the posts on this forum which is helping me a lot to decide what to do on my own trip. I have about 10/11 days in Romania as of next Monday but I still have a few questions. This is my very rough itinerary:

Mon 27 - arrive from Budapest by train, probably spend a night in Oradea before continuing on. I then have to be in Bucharest on May 1-3 to see a friend. Current idea is that we meet somewhere outside the city on the morning of May 1 (maybe Sinaia?), sightsee, and travel to Bucharest at night, or the next morning to see the city. He leaves the country on May 3, so I'm on my own again until May 8 when I have a flight out of Bucharest.

How to fill in the gaps? I have a few questions to help me decide:
1) I'd love to do some hiking in the mountains but I'm travelling by myself and am not a hugely experienced hiker. So, I'd like to stay at a hostel somewhere where I am very likely to meet people to go together, or that actually organizes daytrips to go hiking. Any recommendations of such hostels in cities such as Brasov, Sibiu, maybe Cluj, or another nice town?

2) Sighisoara sounds really nice but this doesn't seem as likely to have hostels providing the above, right?

3) I've also been reading about caving tours. What would be the best place for this? Again, do you know of hostels who would arrange these type of activities?

4) Because my week is being split up by the weekend in Bucharest I'm trying to come up with a smart itinerary that will have me see beautiful cities, mountains, maybe a spa (?), and whatever else I can do. To save me backtracking, I am considering spending the second part of the trip travelling to the Danube Delta and the Black Sea Coast. How reachable is the area southeast of Tulcea? Towns like Sf Gheorge and Halmyris sound interesting, and very different from the mountains. Is it doable to get there by public transport?

5) Is Sinaia a good day trip from Bucharest or would it take too long to travel?

6) I've read good stuff about both Sucaeva and the area around Sighet. They seem pretty far out of the way and difficult to reach by public transport. Is there a good way to fit either in to my weird, broken up itinerary? If so, which one would you recommend?

7) Will completely everything be closed on May 1 or is it still fine for a day to be on trains and sightsee? Will I need to book accomodation in advance for that particular weekend? (I'm guessing the rest of the time I should be fine with either showing up somewhere or calling ahead earlier in the day. Do I assume correctly?)

Any and all suggestions on how I can make this trip as good as possible are very welcome of course! I'm mostly worried about stranding somewhere because of the break in between which might not leave enough time to access some of the (what seem to be beautiful) cities that are further away, and to do any hiking etc.

Thank you!

1. Can't say about hiking tours, but in the hostels in Brasov you're definitely going to find some people going for hikes. Also, the hiking paths in the mountains around Brasov (and especially to the south) aren't that difficult, you could even do them alone.

2. Sighisoara is a bit further away from the main mountain ranges, so naturally there aren't as many hiking options.

3. There are numerous and very impressive caves in the Apuseni (Western Carpathians) mountains, you could try to get to some of them from Oradea or Cluj.

4. There's not much to do in the resorts on the southern part of the Romanian Black Sea coast in early May (except of course around May 1), but the Danube Delta is absolutely worth a visit.
As public transportation in that area there's one ferry ~daily on each of the three main channels of the Danube through the Delta, from Tulcea to the sea, stopping in every village along the way; another more common way to travel there is by renting boats.
Sfantu Gheorghe is accessible with the above mentioned ferry, Murighiol (where the ruins of Halmyris are) is accessible both by ferry and by bus.

5. Sinaia is a very good day trip from Bucharest, it takes about two hours to get there by train.

6. The areas around Suceava (=Bucovina) and around Sighet (=Maramures) aren't that difficult to reach by train or bus, the problem is traveling inside them using public transport.

To avoid backtracking, if you want to go to Maramures it's probably better to do it in the first part of your trip (go to Cluj, take a train or bus to Sighet, briefly visit some villages nearby and then take the night train to Brasov or Sinaia) and if you want to go to Bucovina leave it for the final part of the trip (take a train from Bucharest to Suceva or better to Gura Humorului, get from there to some of the monasteries, then take the train back to Bucharest).

7. On May 1 (and in the weekend after it) most shops and museums will be closed, restaurants will be open, trains and buses might be crowded.

As for booking accommodations, from what I understand on the May 1st weekend you're going to be in Bucharest, in which case you don't have to book in advance - but if you're going to be somewhere else (in a touristic area) then you absolutely should book accommodations, it's a very popular holiday and many resorts get full.
For the rest of the trip it would be a good idea to book in advance, especially if you're looking for more affordable places, but generally you can also find accommodations on the spot.

__________

So, my suggestions for an itinerary would be to take the train from Oradea (which you might want to skip) straight to Brasov, stay there for the first days (doing the usual day trips: to Bran&Rasnov, to Sighisoara, to Sibiu etc.), then meet up with your friend in Bucharest and finally get to the Danube Delta.

yay, thanks ktack! this helps a lot!

The only place on your list I know about is Sighisoara. It has a delightful YHA right in the middle of the old town - have no idea if they organise trips, but when I saw it, I so wished I stayed there. I was blown away by first impressions of this place, but it didn't last long - mainly because of the quaint Romanian custom of closing everything early on New Year's Eve so they can open up sometime before midnight to see the New Year in with a blast.

cheers myshkin - Sighisoara does look nice....

anyone else who wants to chime in before I get on a plane to Budapest tomorrow?

thanks for that hostel rec myshkin, lovely place. though sighisoara itself seems to be deserted...

heading to Brasov tomorrow, so looking forward to that.

more questions about next week.
I have a vague plan to go from Bucharest to Tulcea on sunday and then by ferry to the coast. My guidebook says that trains between these cities should be about 6hours - all I can find online comes up to 9 or 10 hours of travelling.

How can I get there best? Any idea?

What would be a good alternative for the Danube Delta/Black Sea coast?
It doesn't look like i'll be able to get into some proper mountains before reaching Bucharest so I might want to do that. Suggestions? Preferably without spending hours and hours on a slow train....

I have a vague plan to go from Bucharest to Tulcea on sunday and then by ferry to the coast. My guidebook says that trains between these cities should be about 6hours - all I can find online comes up to 9 or 10 hours of travelling.

There aren't any direct trains between Bucharest and Tulcea right now, you have to change in Medgidia, which adds up to the total time.

But you should probably travel on another day (or spend a night in Tulcea), because after taking a closer look at the ferry schedule I noticed there aren't any ferrys from Tulcea on Sundays.

How can I get there best? Any idea?

Take a direct bus, with it the trip takes about 4 1/2 hours. You can check schedules here; preferably take the earliest bus so that you can get to Tulcea before 1.30PM , that's when the ferrys leave.

Edited by: ktack

cheers ktack.

I have since figured out that I could also travel via Galati, but a bus to Tulcea sounds good too - and faster.

I've just found the ferry schedules too, they are the same as listed in my Rough Guide luckily. And no, no ferry on Sunday :( Although I don't mind spending a night in Tulcea.

Do you know how easy it will be to get a boat or something from Sf Gheorghe to Murighiol/Halmyris? Or is the best way to use one of the regular ferries? If the latter, I'm looking at an express ferry from Tulcea to Sf Gheorge on Monday, and then the express ferry back on Tuesday. But does that stop at Halmyris? The regular ferry (which does stop, I think) doesn't leave until Thursday which will be a LOT of time in Sf Gheorge, and cutting it kinda close to my flight on Friday.

I assume I'll be able to get a bus from Murighiol to Tulcea, right?

Do you know how easy it will be to get a boat or something from Sf Gheorghe to Murighiol/Halmyris?

You'll find relatively easily people to take you by boat to various destinations in the Delta, including to Murighiol, but naturally it will cost more than doing it by ferry.

If the latter, I'm looking at an express ferry from Tulcea to Sf Gheorge on Monday, and then the express ferry back on Tuesday. But does that stop at Halmyris?

I think you're making a confusion about the types of ferries: from Tulcea to Sfantu Gheorghe there are regular ferries on Mondays and Wednesdays and fast ferries on Fridays. On the way back there are regular ferries on Tuesdays and Thursdays and fast ferries on Sundays - this, according to the schedule on NAVROM's website (click on "Program nave"; "nava clasica" means regular ferry, "catamaran" is express ferry), they operate the ferries.

Note that the trip with that type of ferry is rather long and the timetables aren't very convenient: it leaves from Tulcea at 1.30PM, gets to Sfantu Gheorghe 4-6 hours later and it heads back to Tulcea early in the morning at 7AM - so basically you'll just have an evening and one night in Sfantu Gheorghe.

Even if the ferry doesn't stop at Murighiol, it does stop in Mahmudia, from where you can take a bus or hitchhike to Murighiol, it's about 7km away.

I assume I'll be able to get a bus from Murighiol to Tulcea, right?

Yes, buy I don't know how frequent they are.

How was Brasov in the sunshine? I was there in the middle of winter and it was gloriously beautiful with its coating of snow, and various bars into which I could dash for a warm up.

ktack, I found the schedule i mention on this site but it's different from the NAVROM site.... guess I need to reschedule (and need to brush up on my romanian!)

myshkin, very pretty. though it's been less sunny these two days here than it has been for the rest of the week. still making plenty of use of all the cute cafe's though to rest with a coffee ;)

Those are probably the ferry schedules in mid-summer (they're more more frequent then because there are more tourists).

in case anyone else is looking for information on the Delta, I think this site was launched recently: Danube Delta

I really enjoyed the stay in sf. gheorge. enforced laziness, in a way :)