As one of our first destinations in the two weeks of our holiday period we have chosen to visit the salty area in the Eastern Carpathians here in Romania. We have focused on the salty Bear Lake from Sovata for starters.
Sovata is easily accessible from Cluj-Napoca via the E60 road until the town of Balauseri, where one needs to take road 13A towards Sovata (marked on most indicators). Of course the easiest way is to just type the destination into your GPS and follow the lady’s voice until you get there 😛 . The actual resort area is up in the mountains, so make sure you make the correct turn when you get to Sovata 😉 .
There are a lot of accommodation possibilities at the resort, however, booking in advance will help get away cheaply (one of the hotels dominating the area is a 4* hotel which has far superior prices compared to the rest of the accomodation possibilities in the area…). We actually booked ahead to Casa Romantic, which is outside the resort area, but provided decent accommodation for a great price.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, the main target was the Bear Lake which is by far the biggest lakes of several ones in the area. The entry fee is 20 RON(~€4.35) which does not include any deck-chairs, so you need to pay extra for that. Also it is good to know that this is a one-time only entry fee (once you’re in you cannot go out and back on the same day).
The actual access to the water is prohibited between 13:00 and 15:00, so in that period everyone is called out from the water. In this period you can stay in the premises of the lake: there are restaurants to spend your time at or you can just enjoy some hardcore sunbathing in the peak-hours of sun-strength.
A couple of words about the other salty lakes: mostly you can visit them via great access-paths. All of them have short description-tables so you can learn what makes each of them special. A lot of tourists actually visit the other lakes, because they can access the sludge which they can put all over their bodies. They look very scary with that on them, but it is very healthy and it is entirely free 😉 .
So how are the restaurants in the area? Well we have tried one just on the terrace looking over the lake: it was great, just make sure you are really hungry: they serve a quite large portion/person, even I had problems eating my portion (and I generally do not have such problems).
Some pictures are uploaded here.
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