Romania Photo of the Day by Dreamstime: Bucura Lake
The Romania Photo of the Day created in partnership with stock photo provider Dreamstime aims to highlight the best of Romania. From stunning landscapes and popular tourist destinations and landmarks to people, traditions, and food, this series helps you discover Romania one photo at a time. This week, we put the focus on Romanian mountain lakes.
This photograph captures the beauty of Bucura Lake – one of the 80 glacial lakes of the National Retezat Park in the mountains of the same name, and the largest glacial lake in all of Romania. (Photo source - click on the number to get to the photo 148800980 © Janos Gaspar | Dreamstime.com)
According to gohunedoara.com, the Retezat Mountains are considered “the pearl of the Carpathians” and “the blue-eyed land of enchantment”, and more than a third of Romania's plants can be found here.
Situated in the park at the foot of the Peleaga and Șaua Bucurei peaks, at an altitude of over 2,000 meters, Bucura Lake has an impressive surface area of nearly 9 hectares, and is 15.5 meters deep.
It was created through the accumulation of water from rain and snow and is fed by 5 main springs. But legend says that the glacial lakes were created by battle-hardened giants in their attempts to quench their thirst. Each giant would drink, and in their haste, they would splash the ground underneath forming pools of water.
The idea that the area was once inhabited by giants is deeply ingrained in the collective mind of the locals, says gohunedoara.com.
One story about how the massif the lake is located by came to be is one about two giant brothers, who shared the mountain and lived in peace, until one of them stole a piece of the other's estate, convinced that his brother would not notice. The latter, however, did, and so he threw his giant sword, in an attempt to strike the thief and punish him. The guilty brother dodged, but the sword struck and slashed the summit of the mountain which has since been called Retezat (Severed).
There are multiple different routes that one may take to Bucura Lake, and visitors may also choose to camp by its side. But because Bucura Lake is at a high altitude, says blog.travelminit.ro, sleeping bags, thick clothes, and a thermos filled with hot tea are indispensable on a trip like this.
