Cârțișoara is the village at the northern foot of the Transfăgărășan, at roughly six hundred metres above the sea, where the road from the Făgăraș mountains reaches the Olt valley. Behind it rises the highest range in Romania, a wall of ridges and glacial cirques topped by Moldoveanu, around 2,544 metres, and in front lies the gentle farmland of southern Transylvania. The contrast is sudden: a few kilometres of fields and orchards, and then a wall of forest and rock that climbs out of sight.
The place has a long agricultural history, with Saxon and Romanian villages scattered along the valley, many of them with fortified churches and old farmsteads. Nearby Cârța holds the ruins of a twelfth-century Cistercian abbey, one of the easternmost houses of that order, and its Gothic church, partly roofless, stands in a village field. The Orthodox monastery at Sâmbăta de Sus, a short distance away, was founded in the late seventeenth century by Constantin Brâncoveanu and is a calm place of white walls and carved wooden porches. The area is also bear country, and the forests above the villages hold lynx, wolves and chamois.
Starting from here means climbing the Transfăgărășan from the north, and the first part is gentle, following the Bâlea river through spruce woods and past a long waterfall. Then the road lifts in tight bends and long switchbacks to the high lake of Bâlea at about 2,034 metres, which has a mountain chalet and, in winter, a hotel built from ice. At the top a tunnel just under a kilometre long takes the road through the ridge, and on the far side the descent drops toward the Vidraru lake and Curtea de Argeș. The road is open in summer only, usually from around July until October, and can still be closed by snow or rockfall in bad weather, so check before setting out.
Cârțișoara is a small village, and the nearest larger town is Victoria, about ten kilometres away, with Făgăraș beyond. Roadside stalls in summer sell cheese, smoked meat and honey, and the cheese in a bread roll is a good lunch at the top.