| country: | Romania |
| location: | Carpathian Mountains, Transylvania |
| departures: | This trip can be tailormade at a time to suit you. |
| price: | From £575 (7 days) excluding flights. Price includes riding |
read 5 travellers reviews
the amazing things you'll be doing
Our horse riding facility and guesthouse is located at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, only 3 hours from Bucharest.
We are a German-Romanian business and we combine western standards and animal treatment with Romanian traditions, cuisine and lifestyle. We are surrounded by some of the most spectacular landscape Europe has to offer.
Our village, Sinca Noua, gains its picturesque quality also with sheep, goats, horses, cows, and water buffaloes jamming their way through the main road every morning and evening to the communal pastures outside the village.
Owners, Barbara and Christoph Promberger, have been working for over 10 years on large carnivore research and conservation in the area and have many stories to tell about their work.
We offer our clients not only great horses (we have a good mixture of Lipizzan, Arabs, Shagy-Arabs, Furioso, Kisberi, and local breeds), a fantastic landscape and good opportunities for watching the Carpathian megafauna, but have made it our premise to provide to our visitors a healthy and clean environment.
We are open all year round, but the best time for riding is either in mid-winter (mid January to late February) for snow rides or between early May and late October for summer rides. We offer one-week riding holidays, family holidays, and trail rides across Transylvania (11 to 14 days).
The centre based one week rides consist of five days of riding (including a two-day ride with overnight stay in the mountains), which lead us through the large forests of the Carpathians (where we regularly see wildlife such as red deer or brown bears) and over the meadows and pastures, where long canters without any fences offer the ultimate joy and excitement. One day per week, we give the horses a rest and explore the old towns and villages of central Transylvania. We will get you to some of the most remarkable people, who’s traditions have changed little since medieval times. An evening at a hide to watch wild bears is a further attraction of our programmes.
The trail rides through Transylvania offer the best riding available in Romania. It is, however, only suitable for experienced riders who like forward going and fast horses and like to explore a countryside, where we often don’t meet anybody but shepherds with their flocks during a whole day in the saddle.
During the period end July to start August, we offer our annual family holidays, where riders and non-riders all get their share of fun, and activities are especially tailor made to fit families with (usually horse-crazy) children. Shorter rides, day rides, visits to caves, to charcoal burning sites, excursions with horse and cart, bat excursions, or bicycle tours round up the stay on our farm with loads of cuddly pets.
Should you wish a tailor-made programme, please let us know.
Barbara and Christoph have helped the local council to develop a sustainable development strategy and try to contribute to this strategy by developing the business as a sustainable model. This includes the employment of staff from the village, the use of locally produced, organic food, or the inclusion of local attractions into the programme. Our clients also contribute to a local conservation fund, which helps finance the long-term conservation of the area.
They now also implement this strategy through a large conservation project in Sinca Noua, which is targeted to the agricultural land and the forests in the nearer and wider area. As a result of the project, the whole agriculture of Sinca Noua has been certified as organic and Barbara and Christoph currently build an organic food processing centre, tourism information centre, and environmental education centre in Sinca Noua.
We are a German-Romanian business and we combine western standards and animal treatment with Romanian traditions, cuisine and lifestyle. We are surrounded by some of the most spectacular landscape Europe has to offer.
Our village, Sinca Noua, gains its picturesque quality also with sheep, goats, horses, cows, and water buffaloes jamming their way through the main road every morning and evening to the communal pastures outside the village.
Owners, Barbara and Christoph Promberger, have been working for over 10 years on large carnivore research and conservation in the area and have many stories to tell about their work.
We offer our clients not only great horses (we have a good mixture of Lipizzan, Arabs, Shagy-Arabs, Furioso, Kisberi, and local breeds), a fantastic landscape and good opportunities for watching the Carpathian megafauna, but have made it our premise to provide to our visitors a healthy and clean environment.
We are open all year round, but the best time for riding is either in mid-winter (mid January to late February) for snow rides or between early May and late October for summer rides. We offer one-week riding holidays, family holidays, and trail rides across Transylvania (11 to 14 days).
The centre based one week rides consist of five days of riding (including a two-day ride with overnight stay in the mountains), which lead us through the large forests of the Carpathians (where we regularly see wildlife such as red deer or brown bears) and over the meadows and pastures, where long canters without any fences offer the ultimate joy and excitement. One day per week, we give the horses a rest and explore the old towns and villages of central Transylvania. We will get you to some of the most remarkable people, who’s traditions have changed little since medieval times. An evening at a hide to watch wild bears is a further attraction of our programmes.
The trail rides through Transylvania offer the best riding available in Romania. It is, however, only suitable for experienced riders who like forward going and fast horses and like to explore a countryside, where we often don’t meet anybody but shepherds with their flocks during a whole day in the saddle.
During the period end July to start August, we offer our annual family holidays, where riders and non-riders all get their share of fun, and activities are especially tailor made to fit families with (usually horse-crazy) children. Shorter rides, day rides, visits to caves, to charcoal burning sites, excursions with horse and cart, bat excursions, or bicycle tours round up the stay on our farm with loads of cuddly pets.
Should you wish a tailor-made programme, please let us know.
Barbara and Christoph have helped the local council to develop a sustainable development strategy and try to contribute to this strategy by developing the business as a sustainable model. This includes the employment of staff from the village, the use of locally produced, organic food, or the inclusion of local attractions into the programme. Our clients also contribute to a local conservation fund, which helps finance the long-term conservation of the area.
They now also implement this strategy through a large conservation project in Sinca Noua, which is targeted to the agricultural land and the forests in the nearer and wider area. As a result of the project, the whole agriculture of Sinca Noua has been certified as organic and Barbara and Christoph currently build an organic food processing centre, tourism information centre, and environmental education centre in Sinca Noua.
travellers' tales
Where else could you enjoy the warm company of some of Europe's foremost wolf biologists while riding out in remote and stunning landscapes and woods, or relaxing round a wood-burning stove on a cool evening after a hard-day's ride? (more)
how this holiday makes a difference
Our visitors get a first-hand experience and extensive information about flora, fauna, and sustainable land-use systems. Our experience of many years of field research about wolves, bears, and lynx are a good basis for discussions about wildlife and habitat conservation. During the construction of all our facilities we have put great emphasis to use environmentally friendly materials. A large part of the thermo-insulation, for instance, consists of sheep wool. Wood as a renewable resource has been our main construction material and we have abstained from wood preservers as much as possible. Our sewage is being cleaned by biological treatment of a reed-bed.We use mainly locally produced food in our kitchen.Our own vegetable garden delivers fresh onions, salad, zucchini etc., other food such as milk, potatoes, lamb or veal is bought from the farmers in the neighbourhood. But we support the village on their way to a certification of the whole agriculture as organic. We have five local employees and receive a large part of the goods and services from the people of Sinca Noua. Our clients are requested to contribute with a donation to the regional Community and Development Fund. Our price planning includes a donation of 40 Euro per visitor/week for the Sinca Noua Foundation, which runs conservation projects in and around Sinca Noua. Further we are personally involved in a number of conservation projects. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |














Our visitors get a first-hand experience and extensive information about flora, fauna, and sustainable land-use systems. Our experience of many years of field research about wolves, bears, and lynx are a good basis for discussions about wildlife and habitat conservation. During the construction of all our facilities we have put great emphasis to use environmentally friendly materials. A large part of the thermo-insulation, for instance, consists of sheep wool. Wood as a renewable resource has been our main construction material and we have abstained from wood preservers as much as possible. Our sewage is being cleaned by biological treatment of a reed-bed.