Poiana Brasov. Photo by CodGabriel@Flickr
We used to have a genuine soft-spot for Poiana Brasov, a legacy of a winter a decade or so ago when we would ski there every weekend. As soon as we’d finished work on a Friday we would head off for Brasov, eat at Taverna (then just about the only decent restaurant in the city); stay at the Postavarul (the cheapest sleep in town) and drive up to Poiana very early on Saturday morning, usually in time to get the first cable car up the mountain. That way you would usually be guaranteed at least a couple of hours or so of relatively queue-free skiing. By 11am however the queues would be of basic-foodstuffs-during-communism proportions, and the appeal of skiing in Poiana evaporated.
But we were back the next day, and the next weekend. We skied in Poiana not because is was particularly good, but because it beat the hell out of a winter weekend in Bucharest, and because well, it was there: not three hours away. It would almost have been rude not to go skiing.
The truth is, skiing in Poiana Brasov then was a fairly lousy experience. And while the resort itself – as we saw this weekend on a short research trip ahead of the publication of a new Brasov & Poiana Brasov In Your Pocket Mini-Guide – has never looked better, old problems remain.
Poiana Brasov. Photo by CodGabriel@Flickr
And how many kilometres of piste have been added to the measly 13 km Poiana Brasov had in 1990?
None.
The only investment in the skiing infrastructure has been the installation of a new gondola lift three winters ago. And while it has eased queuing a fair bit, it simply means more people sharing the same, very limited ski area.
Yet the biggest gripe we would have about Poiana right now are the prices.
Try looking for a hotel or apartment over Christmas or New Year. You will find nothing for less than €100 per night. All for 13 kilometres of piste.
There was a time when Poiana Brasov was cheap and cheerful. Now it must rank as one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world: only the wealthy can afford to stay there.
As for us, we’re off to Bansko in Bulgaria, with a still modest but much more respectable 60 km of piste, and where paying for a week’s accommodation for a family of four will not hugely affect your financial standing for the rest of the month.
It’s been ages since I was in poiana Brasov (somewhere in the mid 90’s). I remember staying in a quite nice hotel that has just been painted. They only forgot (Romanian style) to take of the curtains before painting the walls, so they were stained and in my room even glued to the wall…
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Nobody seems to care that foreigners are people too, Romanian business owners probably believe that foreigners print money in their bedrooms…
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@Geronimo: Alas Taverna is now closed, a real shame. There are plenty of other places to eat now in Brasov but if you ask me nowhere comes close. Certainly not at a decent price.
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Taverna was really very good though
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Though I’ve never skied at Poiana Brasov I’ve been there frequently for work, and I too have been mildly alarmed by the price hikes there while noting little to no actual increase in appeal. It’s second only to the Black Sea Coast in apparent tourism delusions of grandeur. I know people have increasingly been heading to Bulgaria for the beach for years now, which seems to have had the comically bizarre effect on the coast of properties raising prices to maintain a profit, thereby worsening the original problem, price versus quality. I’m going to venture that it’ll take five more years before beach/ski tourism pieces the solution together and starts taking steps to correct the situation. Anyone want an over-under?
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