Travel planner: The one-day getaway to Sinaia’s Royal Sheep Yard via the royal path through the woods

Many people already know the mountain resort of Sinaia, with its famous Peles Castle, the monastery (and those who don’t, should pay a visit to discover these). Those who’ve already been to Sinaia countless times may think that the famous Romanian mountain resort has nothing new to offer. They’d be wrong. What I like and don’t like at the same time about many beautiful places in Romania is how easy it is to get there by car. One of them is the Stana Regala (The Royal Sheep Yard) and its mountain vista meadow. One can drive there from downtown Sinaia; it probably does not take more than 10 minutes, and you’re there, to enjoy a barbecue and the view. It sounds like something worth doing, but let me tell you there’s something even better: a road through the forest that gets you there in two hours, and which offers much more than the short car drive ever could. The option I'm about to share however seems a less beaten path and less popular among tourists. I wonder why? I’m talking about the former royal path through the woods, which starts near the Peles Castle, and leads to the mountain vista of the Royal Sheep Yard. Unlike what I had read on various Romanian blogs, which were saying this is an easy-peasy route, it is not quite so, but it is so worth the effort. First off, it’s hard to find the entry to this paved path through the woods. Once on the path, it’s sometimes confusing as to which way to go next. But our group of 10 people managed to find their way around (only two got slightly lost when returning, but this was quickly fixed, thanks God for mobile phones and good reception). To enter this paved path, go to the smaller Pelisor castle near the Peles castle, and just before reaching the small castle, take the tiny road to the right, straight to the woods, just near an annex house. It’s a bit confusing, I know, this path is not marked in any way in this area, we had to ask a guardian at the Pelisor about this ‘secret’ entry point, which we also advise you to do. The royal family used to take this route from near their castle to get to the sheep yard. Once on the paved path, the beginning is confusing again, as you should not take the right turn (and go past the ‘access forbidden’ mark like we did!), but rather keep the road up, and then left. During this confusing part of the route, you can see the Peles castle and the Pelisor through the trees, so it will be less confusing knowing that you can always return should things get too stressing for you. We chose to continue and it was a good decision. On our way through the woods, on the ‘magical’ royal paved path (Oz, anybody? ), we’ve met a couple which told us the road stops at some point, and they could not continue, hence they chose to return. We took our chances however, trusting that a team of 10 might find solutions better than the two people we’ve met. And indeed we have. The road through the woods is not very physically challenging at first (though it challenges the orientation skills). The weather was nice at this beginning of July when we had our one-day hiking team-building, it was not very hot through the woods, so we kept walking happily, and honestly not really knowing if this roads leads to anywhere. It made the whole thing turn into something exciting for most of us, as we were delving somehow into the unknown. We knew we had to follow a mountain route marked with red, so armed with that and keeping our paved path, we continued the adventure. Things got a bit more challenging when we reached the main crossroad on our way – where we also saw the first official mark announcing we were on the