bear watching in Romania – Bear Watching in Romania

June 5, 2019

Do bears come out during rain?

June is the rainiest month in Romania, according to weather forecasts. However, this doesn’t affect the bear watching tours in Brasov. Recently, one of the visitors from our site searched for “do bears come out in the rain Romania”.

Bears in the rain

The answer is YES, bears do come out during rain! And we can prove this with a photo taken this Monday, June 3rd, during our visit to the bear hide. At one moment, there were even ten bears in the clearing, even if it was pouring rain.

Brown bears in the clearing

Despite the terrible weather, we saw about sixteen bears in about one hour, so our tourists were very delighted. One of the bears even came close to the hide, which never happened before.

Brown bear near the bear hide

May 28, 2019

Wonderful show at the bear hide

Yesterday we went with seven of our tourists to the bear hide situated in the forests near Brasov. When we arrived we were surprised that there were no bears in the clearing. However, after about 30 minutes of waiting game, they came, one after the other.

Because it’s the peak of the mating season, we managed to see a lot of bears, I presume around 10-12. Two of them even took advantage of a small poll nearby and went inside the water to spend some quality time bathing. Well, these are bear necessities, right? A few of them played some hide and seek, some just enjoyed their food and at one time, there were six beautiful bears in the clearing, a unique moment we won’t forget and I hope our guests won’t forget it either.

Remember, you have two options for our bear watching tours: the bear hide we recommend would be the one at 80 kilometers away, designed by Mate Bence, one of the most successful wildlife photographers in the world. Here, you get to see the bears from ground level, at 10-15 meters away.

The second option is the bear hide near Brasov, where you see the bears from 30-40 meters away. Also, here, the hide is situated above ground level, so it might not be the best choice if you want to capture some shots.

You also have to know that because Romania has the biggest brown bear population in Europe, it is the best place to come if you want to see these majestic animals. Who knows, if you’re lucky, you can even encounter one on the road, as it happened to us two times so far, in the area of lake St. Anna.

Whichever option you choose, we will try our best to make your journey an unforgettable experience. Just contact us 🙂

March 21, 2019May 30, 2019

Bear watching season has begun

Sunday, on March 17th, bear watching season had officially begun in the forests around Brasov.

Bear watching in Tusnad

A few weeks ago, we were a bit skeptical about the weather but is seems that Spring is just around the corner. Temperatures have risen, the snow is slowly beginning to melt, everybody is posting photos of snowdrops on their Facebook accounts so we decided to start our bear watching activities.

Mate and Jean at Prejmer Citadel Together with Mate and Jean, we had a wonderful day in the Land of Volcanoes, near lake St. Anna. We picked them up from Brasov and went first to the Prejmer Citadel, a UNESCO World Heritage site and also a three star Michelin destination. We visited the neo-gothic church, the 275 storage rooms where people used to live during invasions and also discovered the defense gallery, a 800 meter circular alley situated deep in the fortified walls.

Mate and Jean at lake St. Anna Our next stop was lake St. Anna, the only volcanic lake in Romania, situated in the Ciomatu massif. Its 20 hectares surface was still frozen and snow was all around it but we decided to take a 40 minute stroll around it and admire the volcanic crater where the lake has formed.

Afterwards, we went to a local restaurant in Balvanyos area, specialized in Szekler food and enjoyed a delicious goulash and tripe soup. We quenched our thirst with natural mineral water from a nearby spring and drove to our final destination of the day: bear watching in the woods.

Palinka bottle at the bear hide We met our host, Janos and other four Romanian tourists and began a 10 minute hike through the forest to the bear hide. After just a few minutes, a beautiful brown bear appeared out of nowhere, just a few meters away from us. We were served with fantastic homemade palinka and cognac from our host and enjoyed watching the bear. Brown bear near St. Anna lake

A second bear appeared in the last 30 minutes of our stay and after we managed to take some photos with this majestic creature, we headed back to the cars and returned to Brasov, not before admiring the spectacular colors of the sunset.

Sunset after bear watching

October 29, 2018April 13, 2019

Wintertime bear watching near Brasov

For few days we thought that winter has arrived in Brasov. We had a bear watching tour near Brasov on Thursday, and we you can see in the pictures below, there was snow and we can guarantee that it was also pretty cold. However, we were lucky to see few brown bears that passed by our bear hide in the forest.

Brown bear in snow — Brown bear in the snow. Brașov, Romania

However, the weather seems to change now and summer is back. With temperatures up to 26 C in the coming days, is sure that bears near Brașov will not enter hibernation, yet. So we extend our bear watching in November, due to the weather being very favorable this year:

If you want to join a bear watching tour, get in touch with us!

October 24, 2018April 13, 2019

Brown Bear viewing with Finns, near Brasov

At the last day of August 2018 we met a group of Finhish guys and girls while waiting for a cable car in the mountains. We became friends and told them about activities that can be done near Brașov, including viewing the brown bear.

One day later they contacted us and asked if we could organize a bearwatching tour near Brasov, on Sunday. Normally we don’t do this tour on Sunday, as our partners from the National Forests Authority have their day off. However, after talking to our friends the rangers we could happily tell them we can do the tour, so 11 finish people anf their Romanian guide went to spend the afternoon admiring the bears and learning about them.

We could quietly observe about 14 bears, including 2 moms with cubs. One with 3 cubs, and one with one shy cub, climbing in the nearby tree when a larger bear showed. If you want to learn more about the brown bear, click here!

hiking through the forest to the bear hide — Hiking on the way to the bear hide

Carpathian Mountains brown bear — brown bears

Lazy afternoon for some brown bears, relaxing — Lazy afternoon for some bears, relaxing near our bear hide