Lacul Oasa and Transalpina

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Raoul

The second leg of our trip through the Southern Carpathian Mountains, whose first leg took us through Obarsia Lotrului and Lacul Vidra, now took us by Lacul Oasa and the Northern portion of the Transalpina, a high-altitude road which offers unsurpassed vistas and which I documented through photos in late fall of last year.

This picturesque, unpaved portion of the Transalpina Road is also quite dangerous. The rocky cliffs you see hanging above it are eager to hurl rocks at passersby. It’s a situation made worse by man’s presence there. They blasted through the rock to make the road (a necessary evil) but they also set up a temporary concrete factory there and chewed through yet more rock to make the stuff. Until vegetation grows back on that slope to hold together the rocks, or measures are taken to reduce the rock falls, it’s a dangerous section of the road. Rocks were falling right by us as we drove through.

Be sure to view the full gallery posted below for more photos.

Lacul Vidra and Obarsia Lotrului

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Raoul

We drove into Lacul Vidra and Obarsia Lotrului this past weekend. The approximate location we visited is this one.

It’s a wonderful drive that offers gorgeous vistas (as most roads in Romania do), and because it’s not summer yet, the roads are relatively empty, meaning we were able to take our time and stop wherever we liked to take photos.

I’m going to publish the first group of photos today and the rest tomorrow, because there are quite a few of them and I’d rather not overwhelm you.

On the way, we found a grotto formed of ice and snow at the foot of a forest, right over the bed of a brook. The snow had been insulated by a thick leaf cover, and that’s why it had kept so far, but in 75-degree (Fahrenheit) late spring weather, I doubt it will keep for much longer. It was a remarkable sight for the middle of May, particularly since we weren’t at a high altitude (about 400-500 meters).

I recorded a short video of it as well.

We found a beautiful meadow on the top of a mountain, where we relaxed and breathed in the fresh air.

In case you’re wondering what I look like these days, here’s a portrait of me taken by Ligia.

Make sure to go through the full gallery posted below for more photos.

Our very own cherry blossoms

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Raoul

Sure, the Cherry Blossoms Festival draws big crowds in DC, but the cherry blossoms that really get me going are the ones in our very own garden!

We have a truly wonderful cherry tree that grows next to our house. It makes the juiciest and most delicious cherries ever, and it makes so many of them that we simply can’t eat them all.

So you can understand why we get so excited when it goes into bloom, which incidentally happened this weekend. It looks like another bumper crop of super-cherries this summer!

DC Cherry Blossoms in 2006

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Raoul

We had fun at the 2006 Cherry Blossom Festival, as you’ll see from the photos. There were more people that year — they grew from year to year, as I pointed out before. Ligia and I took our time walking around and I got some interesting photos as a result. I think when you compare these photos with the ones I got in previous years, like in 2003, you can see a clear difference. I could see it too, and I was happy because of it.

The Spring of 2006

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Raoul

I only have a few good photos from the spring of 2006, but I like all of them. I hope you’ll enjoy them as well!

The Spring of 2005

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Raoul

Here are selected photos from the spring of 2005. I love the freshness of spring. Everything is new and the green is a soft, nascent color that hasn’t yet matured into the dark green of summer. If only there would be more foliage… I think if we combined the colors of spring with the thick foliage of summer, nature would be even more resplendent.

DC Cherry Blossoms in 2005

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Raoul

Two thousand five was the first year I could show Ligia the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. She’d moved to the States in the summer of 2004. We walked around for a couple of days admiring the beautiful blossoms. We even found a parking spot with relative ease.

Each subsequent year after that, the crowds that visited DC during this special time seemed to swell in number, to the point where parking spots were impossible to find, so we’d take the metro instead.