After a bit of research, we contacted Dan of Outdoor Activities in Romania to organise for us a hiking tour in rural Transylvania.
Dan took a lot of care to find out what we wanted, what was important to us, our interests, our hiking experience and our fitness levels. He has excellent communication skills and is very professional.
We wanted an active holiday hiking and we wanted to see mountains, villages, local museums, wildflowers, local crafts, great scenery, to do some photography and to enjoy good food.
Dan effortlessly organised this. What an amazing trip.
During our 10 day trip we went to the Ciucas Mountains, Magura, Mosorei, the Fagaras Mountains, a Cistercian Monastery, the city of Sibiu, Sibiel village, Ramet village and Piatra Secuilui, Salcius and the Apuseni Natural Park. (I hope I have included everything!)
We hiked in a range of places.. from mountains to very traditional fairytale villages. Every day was different and exciting. As well as doing some great hikes, we visited two excellent ethnographic museums, a ruined monastery, had a really cool cooking lesson in a village, visited the home of an extraordinary good traditional embroiderer, explored an ice cave and the site of a drowned village .
We stayed in local 3 star guest houses. All were great and two in particular, were superb... Maria Dordea at Sibiel and Casa Butnarului. The food was local, delicious and servings tended to be mountainous. The local wines were rather good.
Dan was very professional, incredibly well organised and great company. He loves Romania and he loves hiking and it really shows. He does his homework in finding good hikes, interesting places to visit and wonderful places to stay. He is a really nice, intelligent and well informed person who goes out of his way to plan and deliver a great holiday.
We enjoyed our trip immensely and had a lot of laughs. We were really sad when our 10 day trip ended. The time just flew by!
Dan is one of the best trip planners and guides we have ever met. Do yourself a favour a book a trip now. We loved our trip and we loved Romania.
EXCEPTIONAL AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED