Retezat National Park

“Retezat is a beautiful, remote land and its amazingly rich variety of nature surpasses all of the promises you can find in the travel magazines,” say two Dutch biology students who visited the Romanian PAN Park, the wild heart of the Carpathians. Below you can read about their adventures and tips for a trip to Retezat.

Both of us being biology students, we have shared an interest in visiting wilderness areas in Europe. Our decision to visit Retezat National Park was based on the information we have had from the park’s and the PAN Parks website and travel books. We were prepared to undertake the adventurous trip to the wild heart of the Carpathians and set out in July 2005.

For the first time in our lives we were going to make a multiple-day hike, but soon we realised that we were not as well prepared as other hikers who appeared to be locals or professionals. Our experiences with mountain walks had been in the Pyrenees and in the Drakensbergen (South-Africa), where we had always been able to walk with sandals. In Retezat’s wilderness you really need good shoes and good preparation. The trails, which are excellently marked, lead you through rough terrain with steep parts. We walked through and over the mountains. One trail went over the mountain ridge above tree-level. From here we had an excellent view while walking over the grass. Really great! No trail, no other people, just nature. From here we could look inside the park. We saw the valley and the magnificent mountain range behind - a breathtaking sight indeed!

We had a wonderful time and we made several excursions. For us, the most exciting experience was the peace, the remoteness of the park, and the amazing wild kingdom that was for us, as biology students, a real treat. After the last cabin, where two families lived, we did not see anybody apart from shepherds once in a while. This increased our feeling of being on an adventure. The days before we arrived, it had rained and the rivers were a little swollen. We searched for some big stones to make the crossing possible. This was fun!
Above the tree level we saw many flowers and lovely butterflies and around the mountain lakes we saw salamanders. We have seen snow in July and at night it became pretty cold in our tent. We put up our tent on beautiful places where we were completely alone. It was just the two of us with the stars.

During our trip we only walked on the border of the park and that already surpassed our expectations: really nobody, solely beautiful sights, marvellous plants and animals. Retezat National Park is an excellent destination for people who dislike mass tourism but love to discover a beautiful nature area by themselves. This destination really met our wishes and we are already planning to return to Retezat better prepared to discover more ...

by Daniel Goedbloed and Danielle Bons