It’s a fact that Mahila and me don’t like walking that much. We have to walk about 50 minutes to our office every day which is – for us – by far enough. But yesterday, listening to our roommate Mireille we decided to try out the experience of hiking!

It seemed to be a good idea in the beginning but then: not really.

 So we took the bus to Zarnesti; a little town close to one of the biggest national parks in Romania. After travelling 35 minutes with a bus which was at least twice as old as us, we finally arrived at our destination. And this is where the problems began.

Seriously, how can you succeed if none of us can read a map and everyone wants to choose a different direction for the national park?

Finally we found the help of a young man who showed us the right direction. However, it was a long, long road including midday sun but no trees, no cars, no nothing.  Nothing, except a funny black house being a little spooky which then turned out to be the tourist office. In the inside, there was nobody so we didn’t stay too long. We slowly started wondering…

After 40 min walking we arrived at the border of our national park, Piatra Craiului.

And this time, it was not only a long road waiting for us, but a long road including mountain area and thousands of stones. After one hour walking, Mahila and I were wondering what the hell we did here, at 12 am in the midday sun. Our bottles of water were empty and we basically had to take a break every 100 metres. Seeing nobody else in the horizon, we concluded by joking: “Aaaah, we are really very young and without experience.”

 Mireille started to get impatient so we finally got some motivation (or rather force) to continue walking and so we ended up in front of a beautiful door of a monastery hidden in the mountain area.

Next, after a long break in this mysterious corner, we decided to hike back to Zarnesti. But this time we found another way which was way more attractive. The landscapes were beautiful, the sun more pleasant so that we finally chose this day to be a very nice experience!

We finished our hike in the middle of a herd of sheep and this moment was just magic.

Fore sure, we will return in order to explore more parts of the national park Piatra Craiului.

Jennifer & Mahila