Ninety seconds on Bâlea Lake
The car park at the top is small and fills by mid morning through the summer. Arriving before ten is the difference between a lake and a queue, and the weekend crush runs from about eleven until three.
A glacial lake in a cirque at 2,034 metres, at the northern mouth of the road tunnel, reached by cable car from the valley when the road is shut. An ice hotel is built beside it most winters.
The shore path is the visit. It goes round the water in about half an hour at a stroll, and walking it against the flow is worth the small effort, because the chalets and the food stalls sit at the near end and that is where everybody stays. In winter the arrival changes completely: the gondola lifts three and a half kilometres from the waterfall station to a lake under ice, and the crowd narrows to whoever was willing to queue for a cabin. Ninety minutes is enough in either season. The altitude is sufficient that the weather here is routinely not the weather in the valley below.
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