Bucegi Mountains

The Bucegi are the mountains most Romanians see first, because the Prahova valley resorts sit directly beneath them and two cable cars lift visitors from the towns to the plateau in minutes. The top is not a summit but a broad tilted shelf above two thousand metres, grassy and open, ending abruptly in the huge eastern wall above Bușteni. On the shelf stand the two rock formations that appear on every postcard: Babele, a group of mushroom-shaped pillars weathered out of the sandstone, and the Sphinx, a block whose profile resembles a face when seen from the right angle in the right light. The Heroes' Cross, a monumental steel cross on Caraiman peak, stands on the lip of the escarpment and is visible from the valley far below. Beyond the cable car stations the plateau empties quickly, and long walks lead to Omu, the high point at 2,505 metres, where a small refuge sits on the summit.

What you actually see

• The Sphinx and Babele - wind-eroded rock forms a short walk from the cable car.
• Heroes' Cross on Caraiman - a monumental cross on the cliff edge above Bușteni.
• Omu peak - the massif's high point and its tiny summit refuge.
• The Jepii and Coștila walls - the great eastern faces, a birthplace of Romanian climbing.

When to go

June to September for walking, with wildflowers at their best in early summer; the plateau holds snow into June. Winter turns it into a ski and ski-touring area with serious avalanche terrain. Cable cars queue heavily on summer weekends, and morning is the only reliable way to avoid an hour in line.

Honest expectations

The area around the cable car top station is crowded, commercial and littered in high season, and the Sphinx looks far less like a face in person than in photographs. The plateau is exposed with no shelter, and weather can turn violent very fast. The descent on foot to Bușteni is steep and long, and people underestimate it every summer. Walk twenty minutes from the station and most of this dissolves.

Nearby

Peleș Castle is at Sinaia; Cantacuzino Castle sits above Bușteni.