ROMANIA · EASTERN EUROPE
Fairytale castles and the wild Carpathian road.
Bran Castle, Peleș, Brașov’s medieval squares, Bucharest’s grand boulevards and the mountain road that climbs over the Carpathians. Reviews of the day trips and tours that show you the best of Romania.
Only in Romania
Three things you can only do here.
Castles, mountain roads and old mines turn up all over Europe. These three don’t. A fortress that wears a vampire’s name, a road that climbs into the clouds, a cathedral cut from salt. Build the trip around them.
The legend
Stand inside Dracula’s castle
Bram Stoker never set foot in Romania, yet the world handed Bran Castle his vampire’s name. The real fortress is stranger and better: a 14th-century customs stronghold on a rock above the Transylvanian pass, all narrow stairs, turrets and steep red roofs. No other castle on earth carries this story.
- 1 Bucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
- 2 Bucharest: Dracula Castle, Peles Castle & Brasov Old Town
- 3 Bucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peleș Castle & Brașov Day Trip
The drive
Climb the Transfăgărășan
Ceaușescu carved a road over the Făgăraș mountains for no sensible reason, and it became one of the great drives on the planet. Hairpins stack up past 2,000 metres, waterfalls and a glacier lake, open only in the warm months. Top Gear called it the best road in the world. They drove it right here.
- 1 Bucharest: Top Gear Road – Transfăgărășan Highway Day Trip
- 2 Small-group max 7 – Top Gear Road – Transfăgărăşan Highway
- 3 Small group max 7 – Top Gear Road – Transfăgărășan Highway
Underground
Walk into a cathedral of salt
A hundred metres beneath the hills lie the old Romanian salt mines, hollowed into chambers so vast they hold an underground lake, a Ferris wheel and an echo you can feel. The walls are banded rock that took millions of years to fold. Turda and Slănic are like no cave you have ever walked into.
- 1 Bucharest: Salt Mine Day Trip to Slănic
- 2 From Bucharest: Slănic Prahova Salt Mine Ticket and Transfer
- 3 Cluj: Turda Salt Mine, Corvin Castle, Alba Carolina Tour
Start here
The one most travellers book first.
Romania’s single most-booked experience. If you do one thing on the whole trip, make it this.
The classics
Romania’s Most Popular Tours
Dracula’s castle, Peleș, the Palace of Parliament and the Transylvania day trips. The experiences travellers come to Romania for.
Plan it right
How to see the castles.
Bran, Peleș and Brașov are the trip almost everyone comes for. There are three sensible ways to do it — here’s how they compare.
By region
Pick your corner of Romania.
Each base is a different trip. Bucharest for the boulevards and the nightlife. Brașov for the squares and the castles next door. Sibiu and Sighișoara for the Saxon citadels. Sinaia for Peleș and the peaks.
By experience
Or pick what kind of day you want.
Castles if you came for the turrets. The Palace and the communism walk for the 20th century. Salt mines, mountain drives, thermal baths, wine cellars and the long lunch table — Romania does range.
The royal castle
The fairytale palace in the mountains.
King Carol I raised Peleș as a summer palace and filled it with carved walnut, stained glass and 160 rooms of armour and silk, deep in the forest above Sinaia. These three are the ways to get inside.
The 20th century
Ceaușescu’s Bucharest.
The colossal Palace of Parliament, the boulevard built to out-measure the Champs-Élysées, the balcony where the dictator gave his last speech. These walks bring the communist decades and the 1989 revolution back to street level.
At the table
Eat and drink your way around.
Sour ciorbă and warm mămăligă, sarmale rolled by hand, plum țuică poured before lunch and pinot noir off the Dealu Mare hills. These three sit you down with people who cook and pour for a living.
Medieval Transylvania
The Saxon towns and the road between them.
German settlers built Brașov, Sibiu and Sighișoara as fortified market towns 800 years ago, and the pastel squares, watchtowers and fortified churches still stand. These day trips string the best of them together.
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