8-days in the lynx, bear and beaver world

These days are dedicated to seeing wildlife, with special focus on lynx and bear. As they are nocturnal animals, the activities related to seeing them will be undertaken in the morning and evening.

The morning departure will take place before sunrise. The wildlife researcher will drive you to one of the valleys with recent lynx or bear activity. From the place where you park there might be about 1h hike to the place where you have a good visibility over the area. This hike might medium to hard difficulty, depending on the exact place where the wildlife researcher takes you and your physical fitness level. This is where you will sit quietly for a couple of hours in order to watch wildlife in it’s natural habitat. Distance and light is out of our control, so photographers might have lower chances to get good photos
Important! As we are talking about wildlife in the wild there are no guarantees that you will see anything. We will take you to the best spots and maximise your chances to spot wildlife and especially lynx or bears (depending on the season), but weather and other uncontrollable factors can lead to lack of success. From your side, you should make sure to wear appropriate clothing, wear comfortable walking boots/shoes and absolutely no „smelly” things (perfumes, detergents, creams etc)!

After you return to the guesthouse, you will have a late breakfast and rest. Still, for the more active of you, as extra activities, during day-time you can do some hiking and wildlife tracking, visit a shepherd camp, some of the local historical places (e.g. Bran Castle, Peles Castle or the fortified church in Prejmer), hike or bike on one of the beautiful valleys close-by, paraglide, horse ride or just relax in the garden with a glass of home-made bilberry liquor or plum brandy, or the local “bear beer”.

Other activities related to lynx, bear and beaver watching

In the afternoon we drive and hike (medium to hard difficulty) 30’-1h to special places in order to see wildlife in their natural habitat. The chances to see lynx and bears are quite high (about 40% for the lynx and 85% for the bears), as the researchers know the perfect spots for watching these magnificent animals.

Late in the evening (after sunset) we return to the guesthouse for a good night sleep.

Zarnesti Canyon-Magura village

After a late breakfast, we are driven to the entrance of the impressive limestone canyon of Zarnesti Gorge, where we take an easy walk followed by a gentle climb through a forest teeming with wildlife up to the traditional mountain village of Magura, part of the Piatra Craiului National Park. The canyon, with 40 – 80m high walls, provides the opportunity to look for rare birds like wallcreepers and Alpine swifts, and also to admire impressive Jurassic geological formations used during the filming of many movies, including “Cold Mountain”. During our walk we should see signs of bears, wild boars, foxes, pine martins etc. If you have good binoculars, you might see chamois roaming on the steep slopes.
Altitude difference: 400 m. Hiking difficulty: easy followed by medium to hard.

For the more active guests we can replace this trail with a more challenging hike in Piatra Craiului National Park, up to Curmatura hut (1470m altitude) or even higher, the descend being through the Zarnesti Canyon

Coltii Chiliei (1125 m) – Barsa Valley (Piatra Craiului mountain), wildlife watching in the evening

After breakfast we start walking through Zarnesti towards Coltii Chiliei. Our route passes through a mountain meadow, full of flowers in spring and summer, and leads up to a shrine in a cave not far from Zarnesti. Our guide will trace the origin of this shrine back to the 1300s and explain about agricultural traditions and the impact of technology on local life.
Altitude difference: 300 m. Hiking difficulty: medium
Late in the afternoon we drive to one of the wildlife watching places in the area – special facilities where in the past bears were fed to be kept in the forest and minimize the conflicts with people. The advantage of such facility is that you get to see wildlife much closer than in the wild. For those interested only in pure wild watching – you may choose to take another chance at seeing wildlife in the wild instead of visiting the wildlife watching facility.

The Narcissus Forest (Poiana Vadului), wildlife watching in the evening

After breakfast we drive app 1h to one of the numerous protected areas around. This is a 400ha oak forest with numerous marshes, which make ideal home for a great variety of birds and butterflies, as well as mammals like bears and wild boars. Besides beautiful butterflies and mammal tracks, today we might see interesting birds like Lesser Spotted Eagle, Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Hoopoe, Great Grey Shrike, Woodlark, Wood Warbler.
Difficulty: easy (0 altitude difference)
In the evening we head to a second hide for another chance to see wildlife closer. For those interested only in pure wild watching – you may choose to take another chance at seeing wildlife in the wild instead of visiting the hide.

Brasov medieval town, beaver watching in the evening

This morning we can give you a chance to sleep longer than usually. After breakfast we drive to Brasov (app. 40’), where your guide will give you a short tour, take you to lunch in a local authentic restaurant, then let you roam free in the beautiful medieval centre of this old town for shopping and discovering the town on your own.
In the afternoon, you will meet your wildlife expert and drive to one of the monitoring spots of the beavers. Here the expert will give you information on beavers and the reintroduction program and help you see the beavers “having dinner” (0 difficulty walk)