All breakfasts, six lunches and six dinners are included during our stay.

Meals are a mixture of local produce and Romanian/Transylvanian specialties.

Breakfasts usually consist of a small buffet including an egg dish, cold cuts, cheeses, boiled eggs, vegetables, spreads, bread, yoghurt, cereals, jam, juice, herbal teas and coffee.

Lunches included on this trip will include the following – a picnic lunch provided by a local farmer on one day, traditional soups, and self-made sandwiches that you can choose your own fillings from the buffet in the mornings.

Each evening there is a choice of a meat dish or vegetarian option.

If you are vegetarian or have special dietary requirements please let us know at the time of booking. One night we will have dinner in a traditional Romanian restaurant in Brasov, this meal is not included and you should allow approximately 100 Romanian lei (€20) – without drinks – for this.

Visit the forested enclosures of the Libearty Bear Sanctuary near Zarne?ti on a guided visit focused on ethical wildlife rescue. Walk boardwalks and woodland paths while hearing the stories of bears saved from captivity, including former dancing bears and circus animals. Observe natural behaviours—ambling, foraging, soaking in ponds—from discreet viewing points.

Founded in 2005, the sanctuary spans rolling oak and hazel groves, offering space, shade and care rather than spectacle. Your guide unpacks Romania’s brown bear history, feeding routines and the challenges of wildlife rehabilitation, highlighting how responsible tourism supports long-term protection for one of Europe’s emblematic species.

Move into stillness as you snowshoe a high plateau between the Piatra Craiului and Bucegi Mountains, an uninhabited winter tableland where spruce rims and wind-sculpted drifts suggest misty mountain passes. The horizon opens to saw-tooth limestone and broad domes; stop to pause for photos and reflection in crystalline air.

Your leader sets an unhurried pace across shepherds’ summer pastures now sealed by snow, explaining the geology that carved Piatra Craiului’s dramatic karst ridge and Bucegi’s rounded peaks. The quiet feels chapel-still, broken only by crunching steps and the occasional jay, underscoring how remote this corner of Transylvania becomes in winter.

Step inside the fortified church of Vulcan for a warm community welcome—coffee and traditional cake in the churchyard—before exploring battlements and towers. This is living Transylvanian Saxon heritage: stone walls ringed with grain stores that once sheltered villagers during raids, set amid rolling farmland and winter-bright skies.

Learn how German-speaking settlers arrived eight centuries ago to defend trade routes and cultivate the Burzenland. Your visit reveals their distinctive architecture—naves strengthened over time, stout watchtowers, and painted altars—and links it to the wider network of UNESCO-listed fortified churches across southern Transylvania.

Visit Bran Castle, a cliff-top fortress of stone stairs, timbered rooms and narrow passages that feed the legends of Dracula. Explore courtyards, ramparts and a secret staircase while your leader separates myth from history around Vlad ?epe? (the Impaler), whose fierce reputation later coloured Bram Stoker’s tale.

Raised in the 14th century to guard the pass between Transylvania and Wallachia, the castle’s silhouette matched Stoker’s imagination even if the voivode never lived here. From terraces, look toward the Bucegi and Piatra Craiului ranges, where dramatic topography and storytelling entwine to crown Romania’s most famous stronghold.

Discover winter village life on a gentle ascent from Magura as you join a guided winter walk to the village of Pe?tera. Follow snow-dusted lanes past hay meadows and timber barns, with cowbells muted under frost. At the mouth of a limestone cave, your leader explains bat conservation while you listen for the hush of hibernating horseshoe bats, keeping a respectful distance to protect them.

Learn how cavern temperatures and minimal disturbance sustain colonies through winter, and hear stories of mountain communities shaped by the seasons. Pause in a snug village inn for warmth and conversation before tracing ridgeline views back toward the peaks, absorbing the quiet pace that defines life in this remote corner of Piatra Craiului National Park.

Walk ridge-top paths linking the Kalibash hill villages, where wooden houses string along crests like beads. Ascend through spruce forest to hike to Dealul Maguri?e for views of the jagged Piatra Craiului ridge, looking for wolf, lynx and bear tracks pressed into the snow. On the return, call at a family farm to share a hot ?uica and warm, easy conversation.

Hear how these pastoral communities once fled Wallachia to settle under Austro-Hungarian rule, shaping a landscape of hay barns and seasonal transhumance. One evening, your leader hosts a relaxed talk on coexistence with large carnivores and traditional Carpathian farming, adding cultural texture to the wild scenery you’ve explored by day.

Walk the Prapastiile Zarne?tilor (Zarne?ti Gorge), a Jurassic limestone canyon whose sheer walls funnel winter light and hushed echoes. Trace the frozen streambed beneath overhanging cliffs, watching for deer and marten tracks in powder, before continuing toward Cabana Curmatura tucked below the saw-toothed Piatra Craiului ridge.

Your leader explains how ancient waters carved this sinuous defile and why its microclimate shelters rare flora on warmer days. In winter, the route feels quietly primeval—icicles hanging like organ pipes, ravens circling high above—making this one of the park’s most atmospheric traverses when conditions allow.

Explore medieval Bra?ov on a guided walk in Bra?ov Old Town, circling pastel facades on Council Square (Pia?a Sfatului) and slipping along Strada Sforii (Rope Street). Hear market-town tales beneath the Gothic bulk of the Black Church (Biserica Neagra), its soot-darkened walls rising above cobbles and spires.

Your guide points out merchant houses, guild symbols and fragments of city walls that once guarded Carpathian trade. Inside the Black Church, note the baroque organ and Anatolian carpets donated by traders, connecting Bra?ov’s Lutheran heart to Ottoman routes—an elegant blend of frontier pragmatism and Central European poise.

Sample hearth-warm flavours during a traditional Romanian dinner at a cosy Bra?ov restaurant. Expect robust soups, sarmale (cabbage rolls), mamaliga with rich stews, and honeyed papan?i, with the option to sample regional wines or plum brandy alongside folk tunes and convivial chatter.

This is an optional experience at additional cost, bookable with your Tour Leader in destination. The meal celebrates Transylvania’s blend of mountain produce and Ottoman-Austro influences—smoked meats, pickles and sweet-cheese desserts—offering a flavoursome window into local hospitality after a day exploring Bra?ov’s historic streets.