Azuga

Situated at an altitude of 1,000 meters, in the north of Prahova County, 147 km away from Bucharest, Azuga was in the past a mostly pastoral area. In the 17th century it only had a scattering of a few houses and an inn. In time, around the year 1889, the beauty of the place and its potential turned the tiny hamlet at the foot of the mountains into an economic powerhouse.

Daniel Onea, 13.02.2014, 15:11

Situated at an altitude of 1,000 meters, in the north of Prahova County, 147 km away from Bucharest, Azuga was in the past a mostly pastoral area. In the 17th century it only had a scattering of a few houses and an inn. In time, around the year 1889, the beauty of the place and its potential turned the tiny hamlet at the foot of the mountains into an economic powerhouse.

Here is our guest, Ciprian Munteanu, member of the local council, talking about Azuga’s past and present: “First of all, I would like to tell your listeners that Azuga is one of the most beautiful resorts in Prahova Valley. Of course there are plenty of other more developed places, such as Sinaia, Busteni, or Predeal, but we are catching up, and I believe that in the near future we will set things right. In past years, Azuga was well known for its industry, the town had factories that even made exports. We had glass factories, breweries, and fabrics factories. Right now, our main purpose is to develop tourism in an organized and rational fashion, without neglecting the industrial part.”

As a ski resort, Azuga has been developing year by year. We have here internationally recognized slopes for beginners and advanced skiers alike, with snow making facilities. The resort is famous for having some of the best ski instructors around. It also has cross-country skiing facilities, with dedicated routes. You can take rides on ATVs and snowmobiles. There are also slopes for snow-tubing, riding inner tubes from large tires downhill, which toss and turn as they hit the unpredictable twists in the winding downhill. There are loads of possibilities well known to international tourists.

The town is twinned with towns from France, Sweden, the Netherlands, and lately with a town in China, as local councilman Ciprian Munteanu told us: “On October 1st we signed a twinning agreement between our town, Azuga, and Yichun in China. It was important for us, because we signed this agreement on China’s national day. Our guests made a big effort to come here for the signing. Yichun is a large city, it has one million three hundred thousand inhabitants, and the twinning agreement stipulates for cooperation in several areas: economy, science, technology, education, health, sports and culture. We plan to twin soon with several towns in highly developed countries such as Germany and Italy.”

One famous venue in the area is the Rhein wine cellar, which should be on every tourist’s must visit list. It was built in 1892. It has double walls, with an air cushion in between, so that the temperature is constant inside. In this wine cellar based in Azuga, which was open to visitors in late 2003, you can see the entire process of making sparkling wine, stage by stage. You can also visit a small museum, showcasing machinery and photos of the early stages of the Rhein family business, purveyors of sparkling wine for the Royal House in Romania.

The resort awaits you with guesthouses ranked at thee, four and even five daisies, offering the warmth of a traditional home and traditional Romanian meals, but also international hotels. One of these hotels will host the winner of the Grand Prize in RRI’s contest.

Ionut Serban, the manager of the hotel says: “Hotel Cautis is recently built. For the last four and a half years we have been offering tourists the most modern SPA center in Prahova Valley, with an indoor heated pool, with a wet and dry sauna that can accommodate 18 people, Jacuzzi, off road, Tyrolean traverse, paintball, and even a private sleighing slope. We also have fishing towers and we hold trout fishing contests in the summer. We have routes for cycling, off road or simple treks. Tourists can visit in the proximity the Urlatoarea Waterfall, in Busteni, the Spring Grove, Diham Cabin, the Old Crones Cabin and the Deer Valley. You can also visit a few cabins used as protocol venues by the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Azuga is famous for being a bear hunting ground, and the protocol villas can be visited to this day, although they are high in the mountains. You also can reach Omu Peak, and also the mansions in Prahova Valley. We organize trips to the most beautiful monasteries, built by Romanian rulers of the past.”

Ionut Serban also told us that the area attracts many tourists from all over the world: “We have loads of guests from France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, China and even Australia. More than half of the tourists were return customers. They didn’t necessarily come back by themselves, they also brought family and recommended our town to friends, giving us the best aggregate rating among all the resorts in Prahova Valley, on an international hotel booking website.”

Our invitation stands, and once you have provided the correct answers to our questions as part of the contest, you can enjoy a trip to Azuga between September 1st and 9th.