Protected Areas

The southern Carpathians

Retezat National Park is Romania’s first national park, established in 1935, and lies towards the western extremity of the Southern Carpathians. A pristine area of high altitude habitats with all the major wildlife elements of the Romanian mountains, it has one of the best-developed park infrastructures in the country. This has resulted in it recently acquiring PAN park status.

Its northern area offers a granitic landscape shaped by past glaciations, covered with 80 alpine lakes, screes ad cirques. Little Retezat to the south is a limestone massif with attendant gorges, caves and sinkholes. The park is a prime area for butterflies, with species such as Balkan heath, scarce fritillary, clouded Apollo, large blue, Sudeten ringlet and large heath.

A number of accommodation options are available around the park’s periphery, as well as the Vila Rotunda, one of Ceausescu’s hunting lodges, within the park boundary.

The Hateg Geopark, linking Retezat with Gradistea Muncelului Cioclovina Natural Park, is a fine area for butterflies and hay meadows. Its unique claim to fame, though, is that several well-preserved clutches of dinosaur eggs have been found here, dating from the Cretaceous period, 68 million years ago. These are attributed to Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, a duck-billed herbivore which, alongside a group of dinosaurs, were isolated on an island in the ancient Tethys Ocean and evolved as an assemblage of dwarf species. Fossils of the largest flying reptile Hatzegopteryx thambema have also been found.

Abutting Retezat to the south is the even larger Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park, with an outstanding and unspoiled karst landscape of cliffs and gorges, topped by the 1,100 meter Mount Domogled. The park is particularly well known for its butterflies, with populations of species such as Russian heath and black ringlet. The warm microclimate favors plants with Mediterranean preferences such as downy and Turkey oaks. It also supports the local form of Austrian pine, known as Banat pine, which grows into sculptured, graceful forms on the broken limestone slopes. The spa resort of Baile Herculane lies on the park’s doorstep.

Near the town of Resita and Anina, 75 km southeast Timisoara, more karst is protected in the neighboring Nerei – Beusnita Gorges and Semenic – Carasului Gorges National Parks. The wild Nerei Gorge is the country’s longest, while the Carasului Gorges make for exciting hiking. This park also has some spectacular caves, but it’s the vast virgin beech forest that impresses the most.

Cozia National Park is located in the central sector of the Southern Carpathians, lying on the approaches to the higher Fagaras range. Its 17,000 hectares are dominated by forests whose character is influenced by the area’s somewhat milder climate: oak woodland attains an unusually high altitude here. Cozia is also called the Mount of Flowers, due to the rich plant life that includes edelweiss and martagon lily. The well-known and much-visited Cozia Monastery lies within the park

The Piatra Craiului National Park, a staggering wall of mountains 20 km long, stretches from Zarnesti in the north to Podu Dambovitei in the south. The area has been protected since 1939, but declared a national park only in 1990. More than 700 caves are to be found here, one of the most impressive being the Avenul din Grind, which descends to 540 meters below the surface.

Piatra Craiului is a fabulous hiking area, with the high Fagaras range dominating the superb views. Carpathian carnivores are also present in numbers here, a bear hide being available in Barsa lui Bucur Valley, just outside the park.

The Bucegi Nature Reserve protects the entire 300 sq km of the Bucegi Mountain range and has a well-developed system of footpaths serving the many visitors based at the adjacent resort towns of Sinaia and Busteni. The park is essentially a plateau with very steep slopes along its eastern edge, which drop down to the Prahova Valley 1,200 meters below. Two sets of wind-eroded rocks, head-shaped Sphinx and the Babele (the Old Ladies), are a popular draw, but there’s much harder hiking to be had, including long walks to Bran and summits such as Omu, standing at 2,500 meters. The wildlife is richer towards less-disturbed western fringes of the park, where there are bears, capercaillie and lynx.

The Eastern Carpathians

The Eastern Carpathians comprise some of the wildest mountains in the country, and are appropriately well-endowed with protected areas. Bicazului Gorges-Hasmas National Park, on the borders of Transylvania and Moldavia, presides over the dramatic Bicaz Gorges, cut through limestone by the river with the same name.

Huge bare cliffs and vertical pillars provide excellent habitat to wallcreepers. The park is also known for lady’s slipper orchid and the Apollo butterfly. The Red Lake, a curious natural lake created in 1837 by a huge landslip that blocked the Bicaz River, lies within the boundary; long-dead pine trees still stand in the water. The gorges are traversed by the Gheorgheni to Piatra Neamt road and are therefore relatively easy to visit. There is an information centre and a network of paths. Not far away, the Ceahlau Massif, also with national park status, provides fantastic hiking amid towering crags.

The Rodnei Massif in Maramures shows signs of a glacial past, unusual in the Carpathians. The national park here holds the highest of the peaks of all the eastern ranges, reaching 2,300 meters in the permanently snowcapped Mount Pietrosul. Waterfalls such as Cailor, some 80 meters high, and more than 20 beautiful glacier lakes like Iezer and Lala, add to the appeal of visiting this remote, wild place.

The area is known for its caves, in particular for some of the strange features they contain, such as limestone spheres, rare minerals and stalactites made from gypsum. The park is home to black grouse, and rare butterflies including three similar species of ringlet: blind, water and Sudeten. However, its most celebrated wild species is Lychnis nivalis, a small pink alpine flower the size of a buttercup, found nowhere else in the world.

The Apuseni Mountains

The Apuseni Mountains located west of Cluj in a lower and less alpine zone than the other protected areas in the Carpathians represents a remote and beautiful region of traditional land management, with forests and large expanses of flowery pasture and meadow.

The peaceful area within the Apuseni Natural Park is remarkable for the effect its micro-climate has on the vegetation. A spectacular number of caves and other karst features are also present. Did you know?

There are five caves with perennial ice deposits, the most famous of which is Ghetarul de la Scarisoara, which contains 75,000 cubic meters of ice dating back 3,500 years. Pestera Ursilor is not only known for its giant cave-bear skeletons but for its fantastic displays of stalactites and stalagmites.

Romania’s longest cave is to the northwest of the Apuseni, in the Padurea Craiului Mountains. Pestera Vantului is a twisty cave of 50 km long. To be remembered here is also the Turda Gorges with cliffs 300 meters high, which host raptors and an important assemblage of plants.

Danube Delta

The Danube Delta is a major migration hub for numerous bird species and home to 60% of the world’s small pygmy cormorant population. East of the Macin Mountains, exotic birds, including bee-eaters, rollers, hoopoes and lesser grey shrikes, fly up from roadside wires during the summer months, this being only a prelude to the Danube Delta and the coastal strip of Dobrogea, where the bird life is among the richest in the whole of Europe. Did you know?

The delta is a vast complex of open water, reed beds, dunes, sandbanks, marshland, wooded areas and farmland, which is consistently evolving due to the deposition and reshaping of millions of tons of sediment carried by the river each year.

One of the unusual characteristics of the delta is the plaur consisting of reeds and roots combined with organic matter, creating a floaty carpet at least 1 meter thick. Only 9 percent of the area is permanently above water. The river itself flows in three principal channels: Chilia to the north, Sfantu Gheorghe in the south and the much-altered Sulina between the two.

At more than 7,500 sq. km this is by far the largest protected area in Romania and has a long list of conservation accolades: Biosphere Reserve, World Heritage Site and Ramsar Site . There are many strictly protected areas in the reserve to which access is restricted.

More than 300 bird species have been observed in the Delta. The largest white pelican colony in Europe is on Rosca Lake near the Ukrainian border, while the much rarer Dalmatian pelican nests on plaur in the Sacalin Zatoane Strictly Protected Area.

Species like glossy ibis, collared pratincole and paddy-field warbler are also to be found here. Many heron species are nesting in colonies: little and great egrets, grey, purple, squacco and black-crowned night herons, and little bitterns. Waders include avocets, black-winged stilts and marsh sandpipers. Raptors such as the white-tailed eagle (up to 10 pairs), red-footed falcons and marsh harriers breed in good numbers. Large gull and tern colonies are also a spectacle. Mediterranean gulls and whiskered terns are among them.

During the spring, and autumn, the area becomes really hectic due to the migration of breeding birds many from the Arctic such as broadbilled sandpipers and ruff, which makes a stopover on the way to their African wintering grounds.

The two forests in the Delta, Letea and Caraorman, are growing in 10 meter wide bands along parallel sand dunes. Oak and various ash species dominate the canopy, with a tangled under-storey of traveler’s joy, wild hops and other climbers including the world’s most northerly lianas. Spur-thighed tortoise and the very rare Orsini’s viper are associated with these areas. Did you know?

The Delta is also home to otters , the European mink, and the uncommon marbled polecat that preys on souslik, a ground squirrel that lives in colonies. Amphibians and reptiles are plentiful in this watery paradise. Marsh frogs create a cacophonous chorus in summer months, while various lizards and snakes, including the fish-eating dice snake are also to be seen.

This watery land, of course has various species of fish, among them the European catfish that can grow to 4 meters and the sturgeon, Romania’s most noted fish.

Some of the best bird-watching in Romania though is in some of the southern reaches of the Biosphere Reserve around Lake Razim and Lake Sinoe. Here, the marshes, reed beds, lakes and channels are probably the highlight, as nearly all the birds of the region can be seen with relative ease. Almost the entire world population of the handsome red-breasted goose passes the early part of the winter in the arable fields and unfrozen lakes of the lagoons, retreating to Bulgaria when the weather turns worse.

Between Babadag and Macin Mountains, which in part is in the Macin Mountains National Park, is known as the best place in Romania to see birds of prey, including species such as the rare levant sparrowhawk, and imperial and booted eagles that have disappeared from other parts of the country.