Transylvania

Romania's first king, Carol I, chose a wooded valley above the mountain resort of Sinaia for his summer residence, and the result, completed in the 1880s, is a fairy-tale palace of turrets, timber framing and carved gables in the German neo-Renaissance style. The interiors are even more lavish than the outside: carved walnut and ebony, stained glass, Murano chandeliers, a Moorish hall, a Florentine room and a vast armoury of European and Oriental weapons. It was also one of the most modern houses of its day, with central heating and its own electricity. The smaller Pelișor Castle nearby, built for the future King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, has Art Nouveau rooms.

TipPeleș is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and it shuts for about a month each autumn for cleaning and conservation (in 2026, from 2 November to 1 December). Buy timed tickets on the official site and arrive early at weekends, when queues from Bucharest build up.

Perched on a rock above the pass that once linked Transylvania with Wallachia, Bran was built in the late fourteenth century by the people of Brașov as a customs post and fortress. Its white walls, red roofs and towers make it the most famous castle in Romania, and it is sold as "Dracula's Castle", though there's little evidence Vlad III ever stayed here. The more interesting story is a twentieth-century one: the castle was given to Queen Marie in 1920, and she turned it into a homely royal retreat, so the narrow rooms, stairways and courtyards are furnished as she knew them. Extra exhibitions on torture instruments and a glass lift-and-tunnel cost more.

TipThis is the busiest sight in Transylvania. Book online, as tickets often sell out, and come early on a weekday; the souvenir market below the gate sells smoked cheese and woollens as well as vampire kitsch.

On a steep hill above the small town of Râșnov, between Bran and Brașov, stand the walls and towers of a peasant citadel built by Saxon villagers as a refuge from Tatar and Ottoman raids. Unlike a nobleman's castle, it held a whole village in a siege, with rows of houses, a school, a chapel and a deep well, which legend says was dug by Turkish prisoners in exchange for their freedom. The walls have been heavily restored, but the views across the Bârsa plain to the Bucegi and Piatra Craiului mountains are superb.

TipWalk up the path from the town in about twenty minutes, or take the small road train in season.

Brașov, the German Kronstadt, is the most natural base in Transylvania, a lively city at the foot of the mountains with a beautifully kept old centre. Its heart is Piața Sfatului, Council Square, a broad, sloping square lined with colourful merchants' houses around the old town hall, which now holds the county history museum. Just off the square rises the Black Church, a huge Gothic hall church begun in the fourteenth century and blackened by the great fire of 1689 that gave it its name. It is one of the largest Gothic churches in south-eastern Europe, and inside hangs a remarkable collection of Ottoman-era Anatolian carpets, given by Saxon merchants who traded with the East, along with a large nineteenth-century organ used for concerts.

TipThe Black Church charges an entry fee and has shorter hours on Sundays and Mondays; it closes on a few days in early November for cleaning. Afterwards, walk along the walls past the Weavers' Bastion and squeeze through Strada Sforii, one of the narrowest streets in Europe.

The forested mountain that rises straight out of the old town, crowned with a Hollywood-style BRASOV sign, makes Brașov's best viewpoint. A cable car climbs most of the way from the edge of the old walls, or you can walk up one of the marked paths through beech forest in about an hour. From the top the red roofs of the old city spread out below, with the Black Church in the middle and the Carpathians behind.

TipBears occasionally wander onto Tâmpa and into the city's edges at dusk. Stay on the paths, walk in daylight, and never leave food out.

The tiny village of Viscri, down a long road in the hills between Brașov and Sighișoara, has become a symbol of the Saxon countryside. A single street of pastel farmhouses with tall gates leads up to a white fortified church inside double walls, whose oldest parts date from the twelfth century. Climb the wooden stairs of the tower for a view over the roofs and meadows, and visit the small museum of Saxon village life in the walls. Viscri was one of the villages that UNESCO listed for its fortified church, and careful restoration, with support from local trusts and from King Charles III, who owns a guest house here, has kept its traditions alive.

TipStay overnight in a restored village guest house to see Viscri after the day visitors leave, when the cows come home along the main street at dusk.

The most complete medieval citadel in Transylvania sits on a hill above the Târnava Mare river, a tangle of cobbled lanes, pastel houses and towers, each built and defended by a different craft guild. The symbol of the town is the Clock Tower, which guarded the main gate; it houses a history museum, a seventeenth-century clock with moving figures, and a viewing gallery. A short walk away, the house where Vlad III, later known as Vlad the Impaler, is said to have been born in the 1430s is now a restaurant. A covered wooden staircase of 1642 climbs to the Church on the Hill and the old Saxon cemetery among the trees. The historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

TipDay-trippers fill the citadel at midday; stay the night to enjoy the lanes in the early morning and evening. A medieval festival is held in summer.

Among the many fortified churches of the Saxon villages, Biertan is the grandest. A late Gothic hall church stands on a hill in the middle of the village, encircled by three rings of walls and towers, and from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century it was the seat of the Lutheran bishops of Transylvania. Inside, look for the painted altarpiece, the carved pulpit and the sacristy door, with an elaborate lock of many bolts. In one tower is the "marriage prison", where, the story goes, couples wishing to divorce were locked in together with one bed and one plate until they changed their minds.

TipThe church is about half an hour's drive from Sighișoara. Opening hours are seasonal, so it's worth checking locally before a special trip.

Sibiu, the Saxon Hermannstadt, was for centuries the leading town of the Transylvanian Saxons, and its restored old centre, refreshed when it was a European Capital of Culture in 2007, is one of the finest in Romania. The upper town is built around two linked squares: the Large Square, Piața Mare, with the Brukenthal Palace, home to the country's oldest museum, and the Baroque Jesuit Church; and the Small Square, Piața Mică, lined with arcaded guild houses. The Council Tower between them can be climbed for a view. Look up to see the roofs' small dormer windows, which seem to follow you like eyes. Linking the Small Square to Huet Square is the cast-iron Bridge of Lies, from 1859, which legend says creaks if anyone tells a lie on it. Steep passages and stairways lead down to the lower town.

TipOn the edge of town, the ASTRA open-air museum in Dumbrava forest gathers hundreds of old houses, mills and churches from across Romania. Sibiu's Christmas market, on the Large Square, is one of the best in the country.

Built in the early 1970s on the orders of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Transfăgărășan (DN7C) climbs over the Făgăraș mountains, Romania's highest range, in a dramatic sequence of hairpin bends. From the Transylvanian side, the road rises steeply from the Olt valley past the Bâlea waterfall to Bâlea Lake, a glacial lake at just over 2,000 metres, where a tunnel carries the road through the ridge and down towards the Vidraru reservoir and Poenari Fortress on the southern side. At the lake there are chalets, a small mountain hut and well-trodden paths into the alpine meadows.

TipThe high section is closed for most of the year because of snow. It usually opens around the end of June or in July and closes from about late October, with dates set each year by the national roads company CNAIR depending on the weather; in 2026 it opened on 12 June. When open, the high section is often restricted to daytime hours. Bears gather by the road begging for food: stay in your car and never feed them, which is illegal and dangerous. In winter, a cable car runs up from Bâlea Cascadă to the snowbound lake.

On a rock above a stream at Hunedoara, Corvin Castle, also called Hunyadi Castle, is the most spectacular Gothic castle in Romania, with a long timber bridge on stone piers, steep roofs, pointed towers and battlements. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Hunyadi, the great general who fought the Ottomans, and his son Matthias Corvinus, later king of Hungary. Inside are the Knights' Hall, the Diet Hall, a Gothic chapel and a deep well with a dark legend of its own. The surrounding steel town is unlovely, but the castle itself is unforgettable.

TipThe castle is closed on Monday mornings and opens at noon; the main ticket also covers the guild house and an archaeology exhibition. Combine it with the Roman and Dacian sites of the Orăștie Mountains or the old Roman capital at Sarmizegetusa Ulpia Traiana.

Salt was mined at Turda from at least the Middle Ages until the 1930s, and the old workings, reopened for visitors after a modern makeover in 2010, are one of the strangest sights in Europe. Long galleries lead into vast chambers carved out of the salt, the largest being the Rudolf mine, more than a hundred metres deep, where a futuristic lit-up fitout includes a big wheel, a mini-golf course and a sports area. Below, in the Terezia mine, rowing boats float on an underground lake beneath stalactites of salt. The air is cool and dry all year, around 12 degrees, and many locals come for its supposed health benefits.

TipEntry costs more at weekends and on public holidays, and the wheel and boats are extra. Bring a warm layer. Nearby, the Turda Gorge is a fine short hike through limestone cliffs.

Transylvania's largest city, known in Hungarian as Kolozsvár, is a youthful university town with a busy café scene and good restaurants. In the central Piața Unirii stands St Michael's Church, a tall Gothic church with a nineteenth-century tower, beside the equestrian statue of King Matthias Corvinus, who was born in a house nearby. The Bánffy Palace on the same square holds the national art museum, and a short walk away the Botanical Garden, with its Japanese garden and greenhouses, makes a peaceful break. In summer, Cluj hosts big festivals, including the Untold music festival and the Transilvania International Film Festival.

TipCluj's airport has the widest choice of international flights in Transylvania, so it works well as a start or end point for a one-way trip from Bucharest.