depression of valeni | Travel experience

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Country: România
County: Prahova
County status: Commune
Population: 11.450
Location: Teleajen Valley (50 km north of Ploieşti)
Altitude: 600-800 m (Depression)
Climate: Subalpine
Distance from Bucharest: 123 km (road) 110 km (railway)
Acces roads:

DN1 Bucureşti – Ploieşti, DN1A Ploieşti – Cheia – Braşov
DN1A Braşov – Cheia
Railway: Bucureşti – Ploieşti, Ploieşti – Măneciu

Travel journal

What can cheer you up after a period full of exams and stress? Of course a little and welcome journey :). Obviously, it came the big question: „where?”. After we took into consideration many variants he had the answer: Maneciu, Prahova county. Then it was a day searching information about the place, maps, photos and so on.

The big day came. 🙂 Our train leaves at 7.01 from the North station, so we should woke up at almost six o’ clock to be on time. We were a little bit in late because of me 😀 (tehnical sleeping problems) 🙂 and we needed to change the plan and to take another train that leaves at half past seven. It was a very confortable accelerat train that in 45 minutes was in West Ploiesti station.

The full ticket price was 10 lei. In 10 minutes we must catch the other train from the station South Ploiesti. We took a taxi and with 5 lei, in 5 minutes, we were there. We bought tickets – 5.7 lei it was the full price – and in other two minutes we was in the personal train running to Maneciu. In almost 2 hours we entered the little station called „Maneciu Ungureni”.

After taking some photos at the station we went inside the township. We stopped in the back of the station to have a fresh beer at the comunal inn: a simple place, with simple people, with a great cheap beer called „Ciucas”, only 2 lei. The beer was finished, the „one-piece” cigarette was smoked and we took the road to the dam. We ask some people how to arrive, they was kind and explained us with details the way that we should follow.

In almost 30 minutes we were riding the dam, having in the right part a beautiful landscape with the lake sourounded by the mountains. We had a walk around the lake on mountain roads, taking photos and enjoying that fresh air and wonderful outlook. It was a trailer near the lake arranged as a small house, it must be quite nice to life in a place like that.

We were staying on the bank of the lake dreaming how beautiful would be to move there after years. But the time flies fastly and when we consulted the clock it was around 15.30. In almost an hour we had the train to Ploiesti. Walking to the station we asked people about a place to stay during the night, because we want to go back to stay some days to explore better the zone.

Again in the train. Half of time we slept. We arrived in South Ploiesti and find a train to went back to Bucharest cheaper then it was in the morning, a personal train with 5.7 lei ticket. After one hour and a half we was back in the capital taking the subway. The single thing we wanted was a warm bed. 🙂