Bucegi Mountains are full of natural wonders of all kinds waiting to be explored, from impressive waterfalls, lakes, gorges to amazing hiking trails and more. If you are looking for a one-day trail to leave you speechless, you should consider visiting the Vanturis Waterfalls.
There are several trails to this waterfall, depending also on the desired level of difficulty. We decided to start from Sinaia, from 1400m and return to the same place. Here you can also find a paid car park (Hotel Cota 1400) for 20 lei/day or later in the day park for free on the street as we discovered when got back. The chosen trail was:
Red Band: Sinaia 1400 m – entrance to the Vanturis Lakes trail (Difficulty: easy; Time: 50-60 minutes)
Red Dot: Entrance to the Vanturis Lakes trail – Big Vanturis Waterfall (Difficulty: medium; Time: around 3h)
Return: same trail, around 7.5-8h roundtrip.
The Red Band part of the hike will take you on mountain roads, which are also accessible for bikes. From the crossroad with the Red Dot path you will be able to see the cable car station from 2000m, which can also be an option in terms of ascend/return choice (Here you ca find the cable car schedule and prices).
When entering the Red Point trail you will shortly witness a change in difficulty, as most of the trail will be inside the forest. We strongly advise you to have proper hiking shoes and walking sticks, since parts of this hike will be quite steep and you can easily get ingured.
The last 15-20 minutes towards the Big Vanturis Waterfall is not marked. Moreover, the beginning of this last descent is not marked in any way either, so be carefull not to miss it (as we did in the first place). Below you can see the beginning of it (left side), so this is the moment the steeper part of this experience will start, due to the fact that the main path brings you above the waterfall. This path is best accessible during good weather, when the ground is dry. Also, the waterfall has a higher debit during spring or after several days of heavy rain, but at the same time we would not advise you to choose this trail during snow season or bad weather for safety reasons.
The view of the waterfall from its base is simply amazing (way better that in the pictures). There are at least 3 waterfalls close to each other, smaller than the main one so if you still have time you might theck them out also.
Calatoris 