Ceahlău

Ceahlău National Park was declared in 1990 in Neamț county, in the eastern Romanian Carpathians, and protects some 77 km². The massif stands isolated above the Bicaz reservoir and the Moldavian region, which reinforces its visual presence: it is visible from dozens of kilometres around and culminates in the Ocolașul Mare peak, with Toaca as its most recognisable summit, above 1,900 metres.

It is made up of conglomerates and limestones laid down in the Cretaceous, and differential erosion has sculpted isolated rock formations of striking silhouette in them — Panaghia, Dochia, the Detunate — to which popular tradition has attached legends. Ceahlău is the sacred mountain of Moldavia: in Romanian mythology it is held to be a holy mount, and each August a festival is held on its summit combining religious and pre-Christian elements.

The vegetation is tiered from the beech and fir woods of the slopes up to the dwarf pine scrub and the summit meadows, with Carpathian endemics on the crags. The wildlife includes Carpathian chamois, brown bear, wolf, lynx and capercaillie. The park is one of the most visited in Romania because of its accessibility from Moldavia and the combined appeal of its landscape and its symbolic charge.