AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Barajul Frumoasa is a long, calm reservoir tucked into the Ciuc Mountains foothills of Harghita County, in the Hungarian-speaking Székely Land of eastern Transylvania. Built in 1986 on the Frumoasa River (a tributary of the Olt), it backs up about 1.5 km of still water beneath a 38-metre rock-and-clay dam, framed by forested slopes and the small village that gives it its name.↗↗↗
It is a low-key, restorative stop rather than a busily developed attraction: a place for fishing from the bank, easy walks along the water and through the surrounding hills, and a quiet view across a mountain lake that also happens to supply half of the drinking water for the regional town of Miercurea Ciuc.↗↗
A working mountain reservoir with a lakeside personality
The lake you see today is entirely human-made. The Frumoasa Dam is an embankment structure of ballast fillings with a central clay core, rising 38 m high with a crest that runs 506 m across the valley. Behind it, the reservoir covers roughly 0.8 km², stretching about 1.5 km long and up to 0.5 km wide when full. Of its total 10.6 million cubic metres of water, around 7.6 million is held back for the public drinking-water supply of Miercurea Ciuc, covering about half the town's needs, while the upper volume is reserved to absorb flood waves and protect the wider Ciuc basin below.
