Let's travel together #278 - Ciucaș Waterfall... or beer? (Cascada Ciucaș)

It's funny how just a few weeks ago I was taking this trip with my family for the sake of the autumn scenery that makes me discover new methods of falling in love with autumn's colors and today the same scenery is most likely covered in white.

I know that calendrical speaking it's December, so having winter is not a random thing, but in Romania, we started having snow in the middle of November while in the last few years, we barely caught a light snow with a few days before the new year eve, in most of the cases seeing snow in January or February. So having the white blanket set over the autumn colors came as a surprise for many of us, including me, as I didn't feel ready for this weather and cold temperatures so soon. So in the memory of those beautiful colors of nature and those days when wearing just a shirt felt like enough, today's post is about Ciucaș Waterfall.

Back in 2017 when I was only at the beginning with my travel blog on the chain, there was a guy who used to call me The Waterfall Girl just because I was chasing a lot of paths to different waterfalls of Romania.
Years passed and I never heard back from that guy so I still think of him every time I start writing down a blog post about another waterfall explored, this thing happening a lot rarer lately because quite a few years passed since I and my family took these trips on a different difficulty level, but there is no need to say that waterfalls will always remain special in my heart and a part of nature that I'll never get enough of.
On a funny note, we didn't have Ciucaș Waterfall on our list because we planned to see other places in the available time for exploring, but as the plans made at home are never the same with those once you reach your destination, we ended up with a lot more time to dedicate seeing more of Romania's beauty. So we quickly searched for a new place to cover the window from our schedule, ending up to this waterfall.

Actually, seeing Ciucaș Waterfall got us a little Déjà Vu because it looked very similar to Putna Waterfall that we've seen many years ago and somehow remained very memorable in our heads.

But while seeing Putna Waterfall happened pretty easily because we literally had the camping base set next to it, this time nature asked for some efforts on our end in order to reach a place whose name is more famous for the brand of beer rather than its genuine values.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the brand of beer as its gained its popularity by hard work dating since 1892 and still following an original recipe even in 2023, but as I rarely drink beer, I wish this waterfall was more known by tourists as it's placed in a beautiful looking scenery that makes the whole energy increase like a spark no matter the mood you come with.

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The waterfall is easy to be accessed by pretty much any category of people, being able to drive the car pretty close to this one, only being forced to stop when the forest road ends in front of a barrier from where you will only walk around 10 minutes until reaching the gift of nature.

From my experience, this type of places that are easy to be accessed with a car always end up covered in garbage because it also represents a facile trip for the ones who don't know how to respect nature, but I was happy not to see this too dominant on this part of Romania as it was really not deserving this behavior. As no other part of nature deserves.

Once you pass the barrier you will walk for a bit along an improvised fence until you reach two basins with fish where the actual path of nature begins.

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I would lie saying that we weren't already completely in love with the scenery because it speaks for itself more than I would ever be able to describe in words, but even though we already felt rewarded by nature, we decided to continue our journey, testing our balance on floating tires and fragile wooden planks.

From the images attached, it can be seen that a proper path was set with all the cables and iron elements to step over, but most likely nature manifested pretty wild recently, making it a path rather full of adrenaline than a simple walk in nature, there being few parts of ground you can safely cross over because of the depth of the mud density which gives you the feeling of quicksand in a blink.

So with big smiles, loud laughter, and a bag full of emotions, we crossed the part of the trail that felt like the most unexpected one.

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The next challenge knocking at the door was not being sure on the path we should follow because there is not a proper marked trail to reach the waterfall, people being more interested into seeing the mountain peak with the same name. But knowing that we have to stick close to the water, we ended up going up and down giant stones and through the forest that brought us in front of a landscape that exceeded our expectations.

We did see pictures from this place before being shared on the internet, but talking about an unmarked trail most of the people end up in different parts of the waterfall, capturing it from various angles that had nothing to do with the one we were blessed to see.

It's true that we visited the waterfall after a night accompanied by rain and that did cancel some paths we considered following in order to reach our destination, but depending on the period of time you are visiting this part of nature, you might end up discovering a new path. Either way, the efforts will be well paid at the end of the day for sure.

Even if Ciucaș doesn't come with impressive sizes and flows that usually show how grandiose a waterfall is, this one reaches a height of 3-4 meters that make it perfect for the bravest ones that use its powerful waves as a natural slide that project these in a large jacuzzi in just a few seconds.

That's why, the pool formed by the waterfall is a lot more popular during the spring due to the two hollows formed by erosion that are more often used as a natural jacuzzi or a great spot to cool during the hot days of the summer.

Either way, the story is a lot more different during the cold seasons when not many make their way to this waterfall. I can also confirm this information as we've only met a group of tourists during our visit and we did spend quite a while both next to the waterfall, as well as on the forest road on the way to this one where we stopped to grab lunch and spend a few more minutes in the wilderness of nature. Yet a spot that I found very suitable for camping too, but maybe next time.

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After an imaginary SPA session in the middle of nature which can become reality only during the summer, and after free therapy, we took some final shots and followed the way back where we left the car, without rushing as we already felt that we were going to miss this scenery.

Sadly, we didn't have any Ciucaș beer can with us that would make it a great picture being placed in a scenery with the same name, but personally I did enjoy this place a lot more than any beer since I am not a big fan of its taste in general.

Ciucaș Waterfall is located 45 km away from Cluj-Napoca and as I said a bit earlier, it can be accessed pretty easily by driving a car until you are just 150 meters away from the destination. Once you reach Mihai Viteazu village, make your way to the right that leads you to Cheia village. Just before reaching the village, cross the bridge over Arieș River and then turn to the left on the forest path and follow it for 2 km until you reach the barrier where you can leave your car and begin the proper journey.

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.}

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