The water at Ochiul Beiului, the Bey's Eye, is such an intense turquoise that it looks dyed, and the legend says it formed from the tears of a Turkish nobleman mourning a lost love. It is one of the jewels of the Cheile Nerei-Beușnița National Park, in the mountains of Banat in south-western Romania, where the Nera river has cut a deep gorge through limestone over about twenty kilometres. The park's ancient beech forests are part of the UNESCO listing of primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe, and the waterfalls, caves and karst springs make it one of the most beautiful corners of the country.
The Beușnița waterfall, a series of mossy cascades over travertine terraces, is a short walk from Ochiul Beiului, and the trail through the Nera gorge itself, with its tunnels cut into the rock, is a classic hike. The forests are home to brown bears, wolves, lynx and many species of bats, and the rock faces support rare plants found nowhere else.
The roads around the park are narrow, winding and sometimes rough, with gravel sections and potholes, but they lead through beautiful villages and forests with almost no traffic. Sasca Montană, a small old mining village, is one of the main gateways, along with Șopotu Nou. To the north, the road through Anina and Oravița climbs through the mountains with tight curves and great views, and the Oravița to Anina mountain railway, one of the oldest in Romania, winds through tunnels and viaducts nearby.
Services are limited in the villages, so fill up in Oravița, about seventeen kilometres away, a small town with fuel, shops and a famous little theatre built in 1817, the oldest in Romania. Food in Banat has Hungarian, Serbian and Austrian influences: goulash, grilled meats, pastries and strong local fruit brandies. Guesthouses in the villages often serve home-cooked meals with produce from their own gardens.
May and late September are ideal for the walk into the gorge. Summer weekends can bring crowds to Ochiul Beiului. Leave the bike at the end of the road, walk into the gorge and listen to the river echoing between the limestone walls, among trees that have been growing here for centuries.