Bâlea Lake ( ro, Lacul Bâlea or ''Bâlea Lac'', ; hu, Bilea-tó) is a
glacier lake situated at 2,034 m of altitude in the
Făgăraș Mountains
The Făgăraș Mountains ( ro, Munții Făgărașului ; hu, Fogarasi-havasok) are the highest mountains of the Southern Carpathians, in Romania.
Geography
The mountain range is situated in the heart of Romania, at .
The range is bordered in th ...
, in central
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
, in
Cârțișoara,
Sibiu County
Sibiu County () is a county ( ro, județ) of Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania. Its county seat ( ro, reședință de județ) is the namesake town of Sibiu (german: Hermannstadt).
Name
In Hungarian, it is known as ''Szeben m ...
. There are two
chalet
A chalet (pronounced in British English; in American English usually ), also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, typical of the Alpine region in Europe. It is made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof and wide, well-suppo ...
s opened all the year round, a meteorological station and a mountain rescue (
Salvamont) station. It is accessible by car on the
Transfăgărășan
The Transfăgărășan (''trans'' + ''Făgăraș'') or DN7C is a paved mountain road crossing the southern section of the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. It has national-road ranking and is the second-highest paved road in the country after th ...
road during the summer, and the rest of the year by a
cable car from the "Bâlea Cascadă" chalet.
On 17 April 1977. an avalanche killed 23 skiers gathered near the lake; 19 of those were high school students from the
Samuel von Brukenthal National College
Samuel von Brukenthal National College (german: Samuel-von-Brukenthal-Gymnasium, ro, Colegiul Național „Samuel von Brukenthal”, hu, Samuel von Brukenthal Főgimnázium ) is a German-language high school founded in Nagyszeben, Transylvani ...
in
Sibiu
Sibiu ( , , german: link=no, Hermannstadt , la, Cibinium, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Härmeschtat'', hu, Nagyszeben ) is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania. Located some north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Ci ...
. This was the deadliest avalanche ever in Romania, with the 42nd
highest death toll in the world.
In 2006, the first
ice hotel
An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countri ...
in Eastern Europe was built in the vicinity of the lake. The hotel has opened for 15 years since then, but not during the 2019–2020 season, due to higher than usual temperatures.
References
External links
Lakes of Sibiu County
{{Sibiu-geo-stub