Telling your family that you’re packing your bag to go on a trail running camp is enough of a shock. If you add to it the fact that the camp is in Transylvania, you’re most likely to get all the raised eyebrows you can think of.
But what’s so special about Transylvania?
As a runner who’s been enjoying trails all over Europe, I’d say that Carpathian Mountains are still some of the best places to run. I admit I also fell in love with the Swiss Alps, with the Italian Dolomites, with the Catalan Pyrenees, but Transylvania is just different. It has this unique mix of landscapes, altitude, challenges, and local identity that makes you feel welcome in the wilderness.
The runners who have been part of this adventure so far usually talk about the beauty of the landscapes, the toughness of the climbs, the challenges of descending valleys in which you lose more than 1000m elevation in a few kilometers, the legend of Dracula (some even visit Dracula’s Castle), and, of course, the local polenta and cheese as a post run meal, with sometimes “palinca” instead of a recovery drink.
Words don’t do it justice, so we’ll leave you with some photos from our latest trail running adventures in Transylvania.
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