The cable car
Climbing to the glacial Bâlea lake above.
Dobrislava — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz — CC BY-SA 4.0
Two Romanian mountain roads that are always compared. **The Transfăgărășan** is the more famous and more dramatic: tight hairpins stacked on each other, a long tunnel at the top, the Bâlea lake, the Vidraru dam and Poenari Citadel along its length — but it is very crowded in summer and you may queue in traffic at the summit. **The Transalpina** is higher at 2,145 metres, older and far quieter, and its scenery is open bare uplands rather than rock walls. With one day: the Transfăgărășan, very early in the morning to beat the crowds. Both close in winter.
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Bâlea Waterfall is the highest in the Făgăraș mountains: water dropping some sixty-eight metres over several rock steps at the midpoint of the climb up the **Transfăgărășan**, the mountain road that crosses Romania's highest range. The road itself is half the reason to come. Ceaușescu ordered it built after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, fearing a similar invasion: he wanted a military corridor that crossed the mountains quickly. It was completed between 1970 and 1974 at a high human cost, and reaches its highest point at the Bâlea tunnel at 2,042 metres. From the car park below the falls a **cable car** climbs to the glacial Bâlea lake above — the alternative when the road is shut. **The Transfăgărășan is usually open only from late June to October**, and closed by snow the rest of the year. That is not a small detail: anyone planning the drive for May or November will not find it open.
Climbing to the glacial Bâlea lake above.
Hairpin after hairpin to 2,042 metres at the tunnel.
Bâlea Cascadă, Transfăgărășan road