Sinaia: the back story

About Sinaia: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Two hours north of Bucharest, the Prahova Valley climbs into the Carpathians, and at Sinaia, among fir forests below the Bucegi Mountains, Romania’s first king built a summer palace worthy of a fairy tale. The town that grew around it has been skiing ever since, and today its lifts belong to the town once more.

A monastery in the forest

Sinaia takes its name from its monastery, founded at the end of the 17th century by a nobleman, Mihail Cantacuzino, after a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. The small old church still keeps its painted porch, and a larger church was added in the 19th century. In 1874, at the initiative of King Carol I, the village of Podul Neagului took the monastery’s name, and the railway from Ploiești to Predeal soon followed up the valley.

Peleș, the king’s castle

Carol I chose Sinaia for his summer residence, and in 1875 the foundation stone of Peleș was laid. The castle, in a romantic mix of German Renaissance and Alpine styles, is a world of carved wood, stained glass, arms and armour; beside it, the smaller Pelișor was decorated in Art Nouveau for the future Queen Marie. Visits are by guided tour, and it is usually closed on Mondays.

At Sinaia, Romania’s first king built a summer palace worthy of a fairy tale.

A Belle Époque resort

Around the court grew a fashionable resort. The Hotel Caraiman opened in 1881 at the edge of the Dimitrie Ghica park; the neoclassical Hotel Palace followed in 1911, beside the casino built on the site of the first villa in the resort. The composer George Enescu built his own villa, Luminiș, here in the 1920s, and it is now a memorial house.

Into the Bucegi

Above the town rise the Bucegi Mountains. A cable car from the centre climbs to Cota 1400 and on to Cota 2000, and a gondola rises from Cota 1000. Up high, the open bowls of Valea Soarelui, the Valley of the Sun, and Valea Dorului carry most of the pistes, while the Carp is the steepest homologated black run in Romania. Twenty-five pistes now run from about 2,090 metres down to the edge of town.

The town’s own mountain

For years the gondola and the older cable car and chairlifts belonged to different companies, with different tickets. Today Transport Urban Sinaia, the town’s company, runs them all on one card, and it calls the moment historic: for the first time the cable cars and chairlifts have returned to the community of Sinaia.

Our advice: come on a weekday, when passes are cheaper and the queues at the cable car shorter, and leave a morning for Peleș, best seen in the snow. From Bucharest, the train up the Prahova Valley avoids the slow weekend traffic on the DN1.

Sinaia through the years

From the Sinaia Monastery, Peleș, hotel and operator histories.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Sinaia: the back story before you go.