This week’s dream: Transylvania’s brown bears

When walking in Romania's Piatra Craiului National Park, be sure to make plenty of noise, says Paul Mansfield in the Daily Telegraph. That way, you'll alert nearby bears to your presence, reducing the chances of a surprise encounter. (Not long ago, "a couple of drunken tourists" lost their lives when they disturbed one of the creatures foraging for food in the nearby town of Brasov). Since there are about 5,000 brown bears in the Carpathian Mountains (compared to a mere dozen in the Pyrenees, and fewer still in the Alps), it's quite likely that you'll come across one - at least, if you give it a few days and employ a knowledgeable guide.

But it isn't just the bear-watching that makes this glorious part of Transylvania such a wonderful place to visit. More "The Sound of Music than Dracula", it has "jagged mountains", "sweeping meadows" dotted with "blue orchids and buttercups", "pretty Alpine-style villages with wooden farmhouses" and "horse-drawn carts clopping along winding roads". Piatra Craiului itself is a Carpathian massif 100 miles north of Bucharest – a "vast, humped shoulder of limestone", 6,000ft high and 18 miles long, whose wooded slopes are home to more than 120 species of bird and twice as many varieties of butterfly, as well as wolves, deer, lynx, chamois - and, of course, those fearsome bears.

In the charming village of Zarnesti, you'll find guesthouses with "comfortable rooms" serving "solid local food". From there, it's not far to the Stramba Valley, a "quiet, mysterious place" that was once a favourite hunting ground of Ceausescu (his "gloomy" lodge lies abandoned here "behind high gates") - and is still a good place to look for bears. If you're lucky, you might get to observe them for some time, shambling about a forest clearing - "an exhilarating experience".

A four-day tour with Wildlife Worldwide (0845 130 6982) costs from £1,050pp. ·