What Bears Do In The Woods

ROMANIA is home to Europe's largest brown-bear population, with more than 7,000 estimated in the country's forested Carpathian mountain region.

Attacks on humans are rare, but deaths do occur, and raids on villages and sheep pens are an accepted hazard of living in the mountains.

Not all bears are grizzly

The hotel I am staying at has a sign on the main entrance warning against going outside in the dark alone, and the tournament organiser advised me to make plenty of noise if walking out of the centre of Poiana Brașov even in daylight.

I was happy to accept their admonitions, until coming home from A&E late on Tuesday night when, having caught the 11pm bus instead of getting a taxi, I found myself walking in pitch darkness alongside a wood as I made it from the bus stop to my hotel.

I always carry a pocket torch on me, and this was one of the few times when I have been thankful I do as illuminating the blackness gave a feeling of security (probably false, but comforting all the same).

Reception in the hotel told me off, mildly, but what else was she supposed to say?

However, last night's "Extreme Alert" was about a bear on the woodside street I walked along on Tuesday night, so I am feeling a lot less sanguine.