Békási szoros - Cheile Bicazului

As I promised in my previous blog, the next place I am going to take you is the Bicaz Gorge (Békási szoros in Hungarian or Cheile Bicazului in Romanian).

This is one of the most stunning places in Romania, situated in Harghita and Neamt counties in the Hăşmaşu Mountains (Nagyhagymás) in the Eastern Carpathians.


As the small Bicaz (Békás) stream fights its way through the calcareous rock an amazing landscape has formed with steep cliff and narrow canyons.


Békás stream




The road is twisting and turning between the rocks with huge altitude differences and incredible hairpin bends.

Serpents




You need horsepower here!








The entrance of the gorge is marked by a new tunnel, that is wider and higher than the old one, allowing heavy traffic to go through, as this road is the main passage that links the two Romanian provinces: Transylvania and Moldova.


Oltárkő / Altar-rock and the gorge


The Altar-rock has 1154 m and guards the region with a huge cross on its peak.


Oltárkő / Altar-rock






As you walk through the gorge, you are fascinated by the giant vertical cliffs that trying to reach the sky make you feel so tiny, insignificant and mortal.


In the gorge





In the gorge











If you have the chance to visit the place several times, you have time to notice amazing details and undiscovered aspects. Here, in the Bicaz Gorge, if you are attentive and lucky, the landscape offers you strange surprises. Looking upwards, suddenly, near the edges of a rocky wall, a familiar figure appears, well known from the renaissance sculpture: Madonna with the Child.

What is up there?

Nature, with the power of the wind and the purity of the rain and man, with the imagination of his mind, create a masterpiece: Madonna of Bicaz Gorge.

Madonna of Bicaz Gorge

The last part of this blog is a translation of my text that is in the on-line newspaper Cotidianul, where my photos and text were posted

Lacul Roşu - Gyilkos tó

The Gyilkos tó (=Killer Lake in Hungarian) or Lacul Roşu (=Red Lake in Romanian) is situated in Romania, in the Easter Carpathians, in the Nagyhagymás / Haşmaş Mountains. It is situated at 983 m elevation, it has about 12 hectares total surface area, an average depth of 5,5 m and maximum depth of 10,5 m.

View of the lake

The lake is a natural dam-lake, which formed in 1837, due to a massive landslide, when limestone rocks and clay from the nearby Gyilkoskő (Killer stone) Peak rolled down in the valley and blocked the watercourse of a small stream, forming later a lake. Nowadays you can see the remains of the old fir trees, hundreds of tree trunks stand out all around from the water, as the calcareous and iron oxide rich water preserved the wood.

Fir tree trunks in the water

Several small streams and drift waters flow into the lake, carrying a reddish alluvium that has been deposited on the lake bed during the years and slowly bank up the lake. People try to save the lake by building dams on the small streams to filter out the alluvium.


The lake is frozen in the winter and it is covered by a massive ice-layer. During the summer its temperature can reach 22 C. In the lake there live several species of fish, like trouts and crabs.

Boating on the lake

Tourists have opportunities for boating and fishing in the lake, walk around the lake, mountaineering, as there are several tourist routes to the Cohárd / Suhard Peaks, Gyilkoskő (=Killer-stone) Peak, or even rock climbing in the nearby mountains.

Kis-Cohárd / Suhardu Mic Peak - 1352 m

The water of the lake flows into the Békás stream that leads us to one of the most spectacular places in Romania, the Békási szoros / Cheile Bicazului / Bicaz Gorges, where I will take you in my next blog.