Bear Sanctuary Zarnesti & Bran

Bucharest – Zarnesti – Bran – Brasov

Bucharest: at 8:00 a.m. we’re going straight to Zarnesti.

Over there we’ll see The Brown Bear Sanctuary. It’s the largest Sanctuary of brown bears in the world.

Since the “LiBEARty” Sanctuary was open in 2005, 105 bears have been rescued from cages with rusted bars and cement.

Before coming here, a lot of them didn’t know how to climb a tree, how to hide in the forest from the sun on hot days. There are 69 hectares of oak forest dedicated to bears. The most important is that LiBEARty is not a zoo!

Many bears came to the Zarnesti Sanctuary after Romania joined the European Union in 2007. That’s because several Romanian zoos didn’t provide decent minimum conditions for animals in their care. At LiBEARty came also bears from other countries, such as Albania, Georgia, or the USA.

The tour is about one hour, with a specialized guide. The maximum no of visitors is 50.

For any information about tickets and admission hours, you can visit the official website https://www.ampbears.ro/en/visit.

Dracula’s Castle is the most famous in Romania, with over 1 million visitors per year. Bran Castle is situated at the border between Wallachia and Transylvania.

It’s the place of many movies based on Bram’s novel, such as Francis Ford Coppola Dracula Movie from 1992 (with Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves a.s.o.). On the other hand, the castle is related to our second queen, Maria. She modified it for her to be a residence.

Brasov is the last destination. We’ll be impressed by one of the most beautiful cities in Romania. So, we can see the Council Square. You’ll admire as well the Council House (Casa Sfatului) at the center with its Trumpeter’s Tower.

The Black Church, the main Gothic-style monument in our country, it’s the main sightseeing of this place.
To the end, we’ll walk along the narrowest lane in Eastern Europe, Rope Street (Strada Sforii).

From here we have to go back to Bucharest. Depending on traffic, we get to your hotel in 3 hours.