Lake Cuejdel dressed up in autumn colors  

A series of autumn images, captured in the most photogenic location in Neamț County, takes you into a fairytale world!

Photo credit: Felicia ARON

Well hidden in the Stânișoara Mountains, also called Lacul Crucii (the Lake of the Cross), Lake Cuejdel, located in Gârcina commune, was declared a Natural Reserve in 2004, being also one of the largest natural dam lakes in the country.

Photo credit: Iulian RADU

The picturesque and spectacular Lake Cuejdel, perhaps the most “photogenic” landscape amongst all of them in Neamţ, has the appearance of a forest drowned with numerous trunks that pierce the water surface.

Photo credit: Claudiu OROS

Surrounded everywhere by forest, Lake Cuejdel is an impressive oasis of wilderness, offering passers-by incredible and changing landscapes, not only chromatically, from one season to another, but also from one moment to another of the same day.

Photo credit: Alex JITARU

 Brief history of the place

“One of the most beautiful places in Neamț, still undiscovered by everyone so as to become” beaten “and well-trodden, like many other paths in the county, is Lake Cuejdel. Of a shocking beauty, anchored in an almost virgin nature, Lake Cuejdel grew up like a child that is now mature. According to the findings of the specialists of the time, in 1978 collapses and landslides started at the base of Munticelu Peak, on the course of the Cuejdel brook. The 1990 earthquake would give a new shake to the unstiffened earth, so a year later there was a massive landslide, which would become a dam for the new lake, blocking all the water in a valley. (…)

It’s quiet at Cuejdel! It is an encounter with nature like the one with the icons on the royal doors in front of the holy altar. You are almost in a loss of words, you don’t know what to say because you are so stunned! Beautiful! Perfect! The lake is a submerged forest, piercing the water surface with blackened trunks of time, rising to the sky. (…)

The Lake Cuejdel Natural Reserve is a protected area of ​​national interest, established according to GD 2151/2004 and Law no. 462/2001 on the regime of protected natural areas, conservation of natural habitats, wild flora and fauna. Fishing, bathing in the lake, feeding wild animals, disturbing birds and nests are prohibited ”, a documentary made by Teodora BALINT for the Coolt Neamt magazine of the “CARMEN SAECULARE” Center for Culture and Arts in Neamț.

The full article in Romanian can be read by clicking on the following link:

https://cooltneamt.ro/turist-prin-neamt-lacul-crucii-de-la-neamt/