Camino de România 5

At a glance

• Start / finish: Bacău, Biserica Precista (branching off the Camino de România 1) / Valea Crișului, Kálnoky Castle (rejoining the Camino de România 1)
• Length: 218.4 km
• Duration: 11 stages, avg. 19.9 km (Camino Ninja division); shortest 14.0 km, longest 28.0 km
• Elevation: ↗ 3,544 m / ↘ 3,131 m — the lion's share in the ridge crossing Comănești–Ciucsângeorgiu
• Highest point: 1,336 m on the ridge of the Munții Ciucului between Ciobănuș and Eghersec; lowest point 172 m near Bacău
• Stages: 11 — Camino Ninja system; the association works in sectors, documented are the day stages of the 2025 group
• Landscape: Moldavian hills and Csángó villages, Trotuș and Asău valleys, Ciuc Mountains, Szekler church villages in the Ciuc basin, upper Olt valley, flank of the Ciomatu volcano
• Waymarking: first laid out in 2025 — ridge crossing Ciobănuș–vârful Agăș (30 km, 30 March 2025), hill sections August/September 2025; Tușnad–Bixad since 30 August 2024 together with the Via Mariae (purple); Ciuc basin and Covasna patchy, GPS essential
• Traces of St James: a depiction of St James in the Salvator Chapel of Șumuleu Ciuc (association's information) — otherwise none; instead Șumuleu Ciuc, place of pilgrimage since 1442, papal Mass 1 June 2019
• Accommodation: no hostel; parish houses, Cabana Offa on the mountain, guesthouses in the Szekler villages — sleeping bag recommended
• Connecting routes: Camino de România 1 in Bacău and Valea Crișului; Via Mariae in Șumuleu Ciuc
• Connection to Santiago: none — beyond Borș there are no routes through Hungary
• Best time: mid-May to early October; Miercurea-Ciuc is one of the coldest towns in Romania, snow possible from October to April

Overview

On 1 June 2019 a pope stood at both ends of this route. In the morning, in fog, Francis celebrated Mass before around 100,000 pilgrims in Șumuleu Ciuc and began like this: „We have come here for a reason: we are pilgrims. Here, every year, on the Saturday before Pentecost, you come on pilgrimage to honour the vow made by your ancestors." In the evening he blessed the marker in Iași that reads 4,500 kilometres to Santiago de Compostela — kilometre zero of the Camino de România. The Camino de România 5 connects exactly these two points: it leaves the Camino de România 1 in Bacău, walks 77 kilometres through the hills of the Hungarian-speaking, Catholic Csángó — past the park of Tescani, where George Enescu finished his opera „Oedipe", and the Baroque palace of Comănești, whose builder crossed Somaliland with 70 camels in 1894 —, climbs through the Asău valley to the ridge of the Munții Ciucului, 1,336 metres, 20 kilometres without a village, and arrives on the other side in Szekler Land: Gothic church of 1336 in Ciucsângeorgiu, then Șumuleu Ciuc, where pilgrims have come every year since Whitsun Saturday 1567 and the Csángó men carry the crosses over the mountains with red-and-green ribbons. The route they take, you take.

To be honest, this is not the charter route — the medieval Moldavian pilgrims, according to the association, went over the Oituz pass, which is today's Camino de România 1. The Camino de România 5 is the pilgrimage route, the detour to the one place where people never stopped pilgrimaging here, and the association calls it just that: „sectorul alternativ Bacău – Șumuleu Ciuc". Beyond Șumuleu Ciuc it continues another 69 kilometres down the upper Olt: through Miercurea-Ciuc, church village after church village to Băile Tușnad, Romania's smallest town with 1,372 inhabitants and 237 bear alerts in 2021, along the flank of the Ciomatu, the youngest volcano in the Carpathians, through the decayed imperial spa of Malnaș-Băi to Valea Crișului, where it rejoins the Camino de România 1. It was marked between March and September 2025 — the ridge crossing in a single day by scouts and the Buzdugan family, 30 kilometres. You are walking a route whose waymarks are younger than your boots.

Other names

The route is called Camino de România 5 — the numbering of the seven Romanian Caminos has been agreed with the association that runs them, with whom we show these pages in cooperation. In its own chronicle the association calls the route „sectorul alternativ Bacău – Șumuleu Ciuc", the alternative sector Bacău–Șumuleu Ciuc: in its logic the destination is the pilgrimage hill, not Valea Crișului. Our route data carry the route 69.4 kilometres further down the Olt valley to where it rejoins the Camino de România 1 — both belong to the truth. The association works in county sections and publishes six county GPX tracks; Camino Bacău with 135.83 kilometres follows the axis of the Camino de România 1, for Harghita and Covasna there is no track. The overall project is called Camino de România.

The second half of the route carries a second name: from Șumuleu Ciuc to Bixad the Camino de România 5 shares its course with the Via Mariae (Hungarian Mária Út), the 1,350-kilometre Marian way from Mariazell to Șumuleu Ciuc, recognisable by its purple sign; Tușnad–Bixad was marked jointly on 30 August 2024 explicitly for „Camino de România și Via Mariae". And the places have two names throughout, because the Ciuc basin is more than 80 percent Hungarian: Șumuleu Ciuc is Csíksomlyó, Miercurea-Ciuc is Csíkszereda, Băile Tușnad is Tusnádfürdő, Valea Crișului is Sepsikőröspatak. The pilgrimage itself is called „the Hungarian El Camino" in the region.

Who it's for – and who it's not for

Ideal if you want to know what pilgrimage looks like when it never stopped: Șumuleu Ciuc has been a pilgrimage site since 1442, in 1444 Pope Eugene IV confirmed it as „a pilgrimage site known throughout Europe", and on the Saturday before Whitsun processions of up to a thousand, the keresztalja, arrive after one to four days on foot — in 2027 on 15 May. Ideal for mountain pilgrims who want a real Carpathian crossing, at 1,336 metres with a hut before it, and for anyone who wants to experience two pilgrim systems on one route: purple for the Via Mariae, arrow for the Camino. Ideal too if you know the network — the Camino de România 5 is the detour off the Camino de România 1 you take when Oituz feels too direct.

To be honest, though, it is not for you if you expect infrastructure: no hostel, parish houses and mayors' houses by arrangement, the association explicitly recommends a sleeping bag — that says more than any description. Not for you if you don't want to walk 20 kilometres of ridge without a village, water or signal on your own: stage 5 is exactly that, and the waymarks there are half a year old. Not for you if bears make you nervous: Băile Tușnad counted 237 bear alerts in 2021, after an early-warning system and bear-proof bins still 14 in 2024 — the animals are there, people have just learned to live with them. Not for you in the winter half-year: Miercurea-Ciuc is one of the coldest towns in Romania, snow possible from October to April. And not for you if you want to reach Santiago: beyond Borș the network ends, the association itself speaks of the white spot in the east of Europe. Gaps like that you plan away beforehand, not on the way.

Route & landscape

You start in Bacău at the Biserica Precista, completed on 1 January 1491 by Alexandru, son of Stephen the Great, whose founder's inscription still stands to the left of the portal, and leave the city westwards into the hills: Măgura, Răchitișu, Strugari — where the 2025 group slept in the mayor's house and was given țuica cu scorțișoară —, then through sunflower and lavender fields to Tescani, where in the park of the Rosetti manor of 1880 George Enescu spent his summers from 1909 and finished „Oedipe"; today a memorial house with 35 beds right on the route. Via Bucșești and Poduri (the marking stages of September 2025) to Moinești, birthplace of Tristan Tzara, and along a short, unpleasant stretch of national road to Comănești on the Trotuș, with its station of 1899 and the Palatul Ghika of 1880.

Then the route tips upward. Through Lunca Asău and Straja up the Asău valley to Ciobănuș, the last village in Bacău county, and over the ridge of the Munții Ciucului — not over the Ghimeș pass the railway uses, but south of it, to 1,336 metres, 20 kilometres of forest without a village. This is the old border between Moldavia and Transylvania; until 1918 it was the state border. On the west side you drop to Eghersec and Ciucsângeorgiu into the Ciuc basin, into Szekler Land: 662-metre valley floor, church villages with Hungarian names, Gothic churches, mineral springs. Via Misentea and Leliceni to Miercurea-Ciuc and the Franciscan monastery of Șumuleu Ciuc on the edge of town. From there the route follows the young Olt south — Sâncrăieni, Sântimbru, Sânsimion, Tușnad — to Băile Tușnad, where the river enters its gorge between the Ciomatu volcano and the Bodoc Mountains; via Bixad, where the glassworks operated from 1756 to 1916, and Malnaș-Băi you leave Harghita for Covasna and reach Valea Crișului via Zălan and Calnic, where the Camino de România 1 is under your feet again. Surface: field tracks and village tarmac in Moldavia, forest tracks on the mountain, valley floor and roadside in the Olt valley.

Stages, terrain & difficulty

We divide the route into 11 stages with an average of 19.9 kilometres — Camino Ninja system, because the association works in sectors, not stages; documented are only the day stages of the group „Pelerinii speranței" from July 2025 (Bacău–Strugari, Strugari–Moinești 24 km, Cabana Offa–Eghersec 15 km, Eghersec–Ciucsângeorgiu 14 km) and the marking sections. The kilometres are estimated from our chain of waypoints and calibrated to the 218.4 kilometres of our route data. In the association's logic there are four sectors: Bacău–Comănești 77.0, Comănești–Ciucsângeorgiu 54.5, Ciucsângeorgiu–Băile Tușnad 49.0, Băile Tușnad–Valea Crișului 37.9 kilometres.

1. Bacău – Strugari (28.0 km) — Biserica Precista; Măgura, Răchitișu; Moldavian hills. Longest stage.
2. Strugari – Poduri (24.0 km) — Cetățuia, Florești, Tescani (Enescu memorial house), Bucșești; marked August/September 2025.
3. Poduri – Comănești (25.0 km) — Moinești (Tzara monument); short stretch of national road; Palatul Ghika, station of 1899.
4. Comănești – Ciobănuș (20.5 km) — Lunca Asău, Straja; up the Asău valley, last village of Moldavia; Cabana Offa as mountain quarters.
5. Ciobănuș – Eghersec (20.0 km) — ridge crossing Munții Ciucului, highest point 1,336 m, no village; marked 30 March 2025. Hardest stage.
6. Eghersec – Ciucsângeorgiu (14.0 km) — Armășenii Noi; Gothic church of 1336. Shortest stage.
7. Ciucsângeorgiu – Miercurea-Ciuc (17.5 km) — Misentea, Leliceni; Șumuleu Ciuc, Mikó Castle.
8. Miercurea-Ciuc – Sânsimion (15.0 km) — Sâncrăieni, Sântimbru; upper Olt valley, flat.
9. Sânsimion – Băile Tușnad (16.5 km) — Cetățuia, Vrabia, Tușnad, Tușnadu Nou; double marking with the Via Mariae.
10. Băile Tușnad – Malnaș-Băi (16.5 km) — Carpitus, Bixad, Micfalău; flank of the Ciomatu, crossing into Covasna.
11. Malnaș-Băi – Valea Crișului (21.4 km) — Zălan, Calnic; Kálnoky Castle, rejoining the Camino de România 1.

The hardest day is stage 5: 20 kilometres over the ridge, no village, no spring you can rely on finding, patchy phone signal, bears possible — water for the whole day, GPS with a spare battery, an early start, and the night before at the Cabana Offa, „comfortable with quality meals", as the 2025 group wrote. Stage 3 has the most dangerous stretch, the national road Moinești–Comănești, marked since July 2025 but without a hard shoulder: hi-vis vest. Everything from Comănești onwards has a safety factor hardly any other Romanian Camino has: the railway Adjud–Ghimeș–Siculeni–Sfântu Gheorghe accompanies the route, almost every stage has a station within reach.

One day, two blessings — and a route in between

The 1st of June 2019 began in Șumuleu Ciuc with fog. Around 100,000 people stood on the hillside between two saddles as Pope Francis opened the Mass: „We have come here for a reason: we are pilgrims." And further: „To go on pilgrimage is to realize that we are in a way returning home as a people." In the evening of the same day, 200 kilometres to the north-east in Iași, he blessed a marker bearing the number 4,500 — kilometres to Santiago de Compostela, kilometre zero of a Way of St James that an association founded in 2016 was only just inventing. The Camino de România 5 is the route that connects these two points: the end of a pilgrimage that grew and the beginning of a new one. In between lies a ridge you have to walk yourself.

Șumuleu Ciuc, Hungarian Csíksomlyó, was already a pilgrimage site when the Way of St James in Spain was at its height: first recorded in 1333, a pilgrimage site in 1442, confirmed by Pope Eugene IV in 1444 as „a pilgrimage site known throughout Europe". The miraculous statue — 2.27 metres of limewood, carved by Szekler masters between 1510 and 1515, the Madonna in the sun with twelve stars — survived the Tatar fire of 1661, and the pilgrimage itself goes back to a vow made on Whitsun Saturday 1567, when the Szeklers of Csík and Gyergyó stood firm against their prince's Reformation policy. Suppressed under Ceaușescu, revived in 1990, declared a Hungarikum in 2020, today several hundred thousand people on the Saturday before Whitsun. The processions are called keresztalja, „under the cross", up to a thousand people, one to four days on the road; the Csángó from Moldavia come over the same mountains as you, with red-and-green ribbons on the crosses, bells and drums, and sleep the night on blankets in the church. „The one who starts off on this pilgrimage must know that he or she is in some way an invitee of the Virgin Mary", says a group leader who has walked at the front for 26 years. To be honest, this Way of St James had nothing to revive here. It only had to join in.

And it is not the only one to do so. In Șumuleu Ciuc the Via Mariae ends, the Mária Út: 1,350 kilometres from Mariazell in Austria, 60 days, a purple sign, an association since 2006 which describes its network so that the east–west and north–south axes together draw „a large cross upon the map of Central Europe". Where the Marian way ends, the Camino turns west — 4,500 kilometres. The two routes have shaken hands before: on 30 August 2024 the Camino association marked Tușnad–Bixad explicitly for „Camino de România și Via Mariae", in Sfântu Gheorghe bronze markers for both have stood since April 2023, and anyone who arrived in Șumuleu Ciuc with the group „Pelerinii speranței" in 2025 received, beside the Camino stamp, the „Certificat Via Mariae". Their verdict after 35 days from Iași to Timișoara: „Suntem copleșiți de bunăvoința și generozitatea oamenilor locurilor acestea!" One stretch of route with two colours — purple for those who arrive, and an arrow for those who walk on.

Highlights along the way

• Biserica Precista, Bacău — begun 1489/90, completed 1 January 1491 by Alexandru Voievod, son of Stephen the Great; founder's inscription left of the portal: „Cu voia Tatălui şi cu ajutorul Fiului şi cu săvârşirea Sfântului Duh, binecredinciosul şi de Hristos iubitorul, Io Alexandru Voievod…"; beside it the 15th-century Curtea Domnească.
• Casa Memorială „Rosetti Tescanu – George Enescu", Tescani — manor house 1880; Enescu a guest from 1909, completed „Oedipe" here, dedicated to Maruca Cantacuzino; handed to the state in 1947, since 2006 a department of the Muzeul Național „George Enescu"; 33-hectare park, guesthouse with 35 beds on the route.
• Moinești — first recorded 1467, town since 1921; birthplace of Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), founder of Dada, monument since 1996.
• Palatul Ghika-Comănești — 1880, late Baroque, architect Albert Galleron; today Muzeul de Etnografie și Artă Contemporană „Dimitrie N. Ghika" with park; the builder Dimitrie Ghica-Comănești (1839–1923) set off from Berbera into the Horn of Africa on 22 October 1894 with 70 camels and 53 porters — 16 plant species bear the family name. Station 1899 by Giulio Magni.
• Ridge crossing of the Munții Ciucului — highest point 1,336 m, old border Moldavia/Transylvania; 30 km marked on 30 March 2025 by scouts and the Buzdugan family; Cabana Offa as quarters beforehand.
• Ghimeș-Palanca (detour, north of the route) — the historic neighbouring pass: Rákóczi castle 1626 under Gabriel Bethlen, railway guardhouse no. 30 as „ezeréves határ", „the easternmost railway guardhouse of the pre-World War I Kingdom of Hungary".
• Ciucsângeorgiu (Csíkszentgyörgy) — „the largest, the oldest and certainly the most imposing Gothic church in the Ciucului de Jos region which was built in 1336"; chain of chapels from 1640 to the Eghersec chapel (1957–1958); mineral springs Adorján and Potiond.
• Șumuleu Ciuc (Csíksomlyó) — Franciscan monastery, pilgrimage site since 1442; miraculous statue 2.27 m, limewood, 1510–1515, recognised as miraculous 1798; church 1804–1876, bell 1,133 kg; Whitsun Saturday pilgrimage since 1567, papal Mass 1 June 2019; next pilgrimage 15 May 2027. In the Salvator Chapel on the hill a depiction of St James (Iacobus Maior) among the apostles (association's information).
• Mikó Castle, Miercurea-Ciuc — 17th-century Renaissance fortress (Ferenc Mikó Hídvégi), damaged 1661, today Csíki Székely Múzeum / Muzeul Secuiesc al Ciucului.
• Băile Tușnad (Tusnádfürdő) — Romania's smallest town, 1,372 inhabitants (2021); springs discovered 1842, leased for 99 years by Élthes Lajos in 1845, first 40 villas; Ștefania baths 1890 as „primul edificiu balnear"; seven springs, Apor 7,200 l/h; Bear Smart model town: 237 bear alerts in 2021, 14 in 2024.
• Ciomatu, Lake Sfânta Ana, Mohoș — „the youngest volcano of the Carpatho-Pannonian region", 1,289 m, last eruptions 32,600 to 27,500 years ago; in one crater at 946 m the only volcanic crater lake in Romania, in the other a peat bog; over 8,700 tonnes of CO₂ a year — the mofettes; 17 km detour from Bixad. On Romanian maps the volcano is called Ciomatu; in the scientific literature you will also meet Ciomadul.
• Bixad (Sepsibükszád) — glassworks 1756–1916, master Sovánka István (1858–1944), „cea mai importantă personalitate în arta prelucrării sticlei"; springs Fenyőfarki, Sósborvíz, Bugyogó.
• Malnaș-Băi (Málnásfürdő) — spa since 1840 (Semsey family), Hercules baths 1893, Siculia bottling 1904; „La indicaţia medicului, însuşi împaratul austro-ungar Ferenc József consuma această apă minerală"; today decayed, Vila Elena demolished.
• Valea Crișului (Sepsikőröspatak) — Kálnoky Castle, „built at the cusp of the 17th century"; Catholic church with 14th-century fresco fragments; in Calnic a Unitarian church of 1674 and a 15th-century Reformed church; 5 km on in Sfântu Gheorghe the bronze markers for Camino and Via Mariae (April 2023).

How pilgrims reach this route

The Camino de România 5 is a branch, and both ends lie on the same axis: in Bacău it leaves the Camino de România 1, in Valea Crișului it rejoins it. Coming from Iași, you have around 190 kilometres of Camino de România 1 behind you in Bacău and a choice: directly over the Oituz pass to Brașov — the route the association documents for the medieval pilgrims — or the detour over the Ciuc Mountains and Șumuleu Ciuc. The detour is the Camino de România 5. If you pass through Cleja 20 kilometres before Bacău, you will see a statue of St James in the Csángó village since March 2024; on 25 July the feast of St James is celebrated there.

The second feeder is not a Way of St James but a pilgrim route: the Via Mariae from Mariazell ends in Șumuleu Ciuc, 149 kilometres after the start of the Camino de România 5; anyone who has walked it can pick up the arrow in Șumuleu Ciuc — west to the Camino de România 1 or backwards over the mountains into Moldavia. Without a Camino: Bacău has George Enescu airport, five kilometres from the centre, and one of the busiest stations in Romania on main line 500; the Biserica Precista is in the town centre.

Continuing on?

Yes — in both directions of the Camino de România 1. In Valea Crișului you stand five kilometres before Sfântu Gheorghe with its bronze markers and 35 kilometres before Brașov, where the Black Church shows St James as a pilgrim and the Camino de România 2 arrives from the Danube. Westwards it goes via Șoarș with its former St James church — there the Camino de România 6 runs parallel — to Sibiu, where the Camino de România 7 branches off and the Camino de România 4 arrives from Wallachia, on via Sebeș, Alba Iulia and Cluj to Oradea, where the Camino de România 3 joins. If you reverse direction, you walk from Valea Crișului east via Oituz back to Bacău and have closed the loop — around 400 kilometres of Moldavia and Szekler Land.

To Santiago, nothing leads at present. The marker in Iași says 4,500 kilometres; the Camino de România 1 ends after 1,226.8 in Borș on the Hungarian border, and beyond it, as far as Budapest, there is no marked Way of St James. The association is working on it — since 17 June 2024 as a member of Camino Europa Compostela, with twinning partners in Slovakia —, but it cannot be walked yet. If you want the Compostela, you fly: the Camino Francés is reachable from Bucharest or Cluj with a flight to Spain. What the Camino de România 5 delivers is something else: a pilgrimage destination that needs no Compostela, because it has managed without one since 1567.

Preparation & practical matters

Best time: mid-May to early October. The ridge at 1,336 metres can carry snow into May, Miercurea-Ciuc is one of the coldest towns in Romania; September is the safest choice. If you want to experience the pilgrimage, be in Șumuleu Ciuc on Whitsun Saturday (2027: 15 May) — then beds in the Ciuc basin are gone months ahead. Waymarking and navigation: fresh — ridge crossing and Bacău hills since 2025, Tușnad–Bixad since 2024 together with the Via Mariae (purple); pilgrim reports mention a blue arrow on a white ground, there is no published standard. In the Ciuc basin and in Covasna you walk with the waypoints of our route data and offline maps; the easiest way is to plan it directly in the Camino Ninja app together with your stages and accommodation. Ask the association (office@caminoromania.org, Bacău coordinator Vasile Mircea) for the latest. Credencial: „un fel de pașaport de pelerin", issued by the association since 2018, 10 RON (approx. €2), by e-mail to office@caminoromania.org; stamps in parish offices, town halls, churches; in Șumuleu Ciuc additionally the „Certificat Via Mariae". Language: Romanian as far as Comănești, then predominantly Hungarian — a few Hungarian greetings open more doors in Szekler Land than English. Emergency: 112. The association confirms: you can ask for a stamp wherever you stop — but there are no custom pilgrim stamps like on the Camino in Spain or Portugal; the only stamp made specially for pilgrims is at the hostel Casa Genoveva in Câmpulung Muscel (Camino de România 2). Contact: if you want to walk the route, write to the association at office@caminoromania.org — it puts you in touch with its local representatives, who can tell you about accommodation, the route and everything else; their contacts are also listed at caminodesantiago.ro/contact/.

Accommodation: No hostel. The 2025 group slept in the cathedral of Bacău, in parish houses (Comănești), at the mayor's in Strugari, in the Cabana Offa on the mountain and in guesthouses of the Szekler villages; Tescani has 35 beds in the Enescu house. Guesthouses in Moinești, Comănești, Miercurea-Ciuc, Băile Tușnad; thin in Ciobănuș, Eghersec, Malnaș-Băi — book ahead. The association recommends a sleeping bag: „Sacul de dormit este recomandat." Food: shops in the villages of Moldavia and the Ciuc basin; nothing on stage 5. Bears: no food in the tent, rubbish into the bear-proof bins of Băile Tușnad, be loud in the forest, keep your distance — the region lives with them, you walk through. Packing list: sleeping bag, hi-vis vest (Moinești–Comănești), head torch, power bank, offline maps, two to three litres of water capacity, rain gear for the ridge, cash in lei. The association's training advice: „media de mers pe Camino de Santiago este de aproximativ 25 de kilometri pe zi … Începe să te antrenezi din timp." Membership: APCS annual fee 50 RON (approx. €10), students and pensioners 25 RON (approx. €5), as of September 2026.

What the route costs

To be honest, this is a very cheap route with two published tariffs. All amounts as of September 2026, exchange rate 1 EUR ≈ 5.0 RON. Documented are the APCS membership fee, 50 RON (approx. €10), and the credencial, 10 RON (approx. €2), issued by the association since 2018. Everything else is experience ranges for eastern Romania and Szekler Land: village guesthouse 150–250 RON (approx. €30–50) for two, hotel in Miercurea-Ciuc or Băile Tușnad 250–400 RON (approx. €50–80), bed at the Cabana Offa 100–180 RON (approx. €20–36), parish house for a donation 30–60 RON (approx. €6–12); set lunch 35–60 RON (approx. €7–12), dinner 50–90 RON (approx. €10–18), daily shopping 40–70 RON (approx. €8–14), coffee 8–15 RON (approx. €1.60–3); regional train Bacău–Comănești 20–30 RON (approx. €4–6), Miercurea-Ciuc–Sfântu Gheorghe 25–35 RON (approx. €5–7); museums (Csíki Székely Múzeum, Palatul Ghika, Tescani) 10–30 RON each (approx. €2–6). Șumuleu Ciuc costs nothing.

Realistic daily budget: frugal with parish house, hut and self-catering 120–180 RON (approx. €24–36), mid-range with guesthouse and a hot meal 200–300 RON (approx. €40–60), comfortable with hotel, restaurant and museums 350–500 RON (approx. €70–100). For 11 stages reckon roughly 1,500–3,000 RON (approx. €300–600) on the ground; getting to Bacău comes on top.

Getting there

To the start (Bacău): Bacău „George Enescu" airport (BCM), five kilometres from the centre, with direct flights from Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany depending on season; Bacău station on main line 500 București–Suceava, InterRegio from Bucharest around five hours, from Iași two. The Biserica Precista is in the town centre, 20 minutes on foot from the station.

Along the way and from the finish (Valea Crișului): from Comănești the railway Adjud–Ghimeș–Siculeni–Miercurea-Ciuc–Sfântu Gheorghe accompanies the route — stations in Comănești, Miercurea-Ciuc, Sâncrăieni, Sânsimion, Tușnad, Băile Tușnad, Bixad, Malnaș-Băi, almost every stage has an exit. From Valea Crișului five kilometres (bus or Camino de România 1) to Sfântu Gheorghe, from there train to Brașov in an hour and on to București, Cluj or Budapest; Brașov airport (GHV) 40 kilometres.

• Romanian railways: bilete.cfrcalatori.ro — CFR Călători, Bacău – Comănești, Miercurea-Ciuc – Sfântu Gheorghe
• Info: caminodesantiago.ro — Chronicle, credencial
• Via Mariae: mariaut.ro — Mária Út, shared section Șumuleu Ciuc – Bixad
• Bacău airport: bacauairport.ro — getting to the start
• Băile Tușnad: bailetusnad.ro — spa town, history, bear advice