Romania: Seven Attractions and Natural Wonders

Transylvanian legend and Carpathian scenery

Romania, straddling the Carpathian Mountains in southeastern Europe, holds a particularly rich mix of medieval Transylvanian towns and castles, a communist-era capital reshaped by one of the 20th century's most extreme building projects, and one of the largest and best-preserved wetland ecosystems in Europe along the Danube. Its association with the Dracula legend, inspired loosely by the historical figure Vlad the Impaler and the castles of Transylvania, remains one of its best-known international draws, even where the connections are more marketing than historical fact.

The seven below run from Transylvania to Bucharest and the Danube Delta. Spring through autumn suits most of the sights; the mountain roads close with winter snow.

1. Bran Castle

Bran Castle, built in the 14th century to guard a mountain pass between Transylvania and Wallachia, has only a loose historical connection to Vlad the Impaler (the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula) but has nonetheless become the country's most visited castle on the strength of that association. Its steep towers and hilltop setting have made it a fixture of Transylvanian tourism regardless of the historical fine print.

2. Peleș Castle

Peleș Castle, built between 1873 and 1914 for King Carol I, is widely considered one of the most beautiful and best-preserved royal residences in Europe — an ornate Neo-Renaissance exterior surrounding interiors of carved wood, stained glass, and one of the most technologically advanced homes of its era, with central heating and an internal vacuum-cleaning system decades ahead of most European palaces.

3. The Danube Delta

The Danube Delta, where Europe's second-longest river fans out into the Black Sea, forms one of the continent's largest and most important wetland systems — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and biosphere reserve holding over 300 bird species, including one of Europe's largest colonies of white pelicans. Traditional fishing villages, reached mainly by boat through a maze of channels and reed beds, still practise a way of life shaped entirely by the delta's waterways.

4. Sighișoara

Sighișoara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, preserves one of the finest and still-inhabited fortified medieval towns in Europe, its cobbled streets, colourful merchant houses, and defensive towers built by Transylvanian Saxon settlers from the 12th century onward. It also claims to be the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, adding another layer to the region's Dracula-tourism appeal.

5. The Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest

The Palace of the Parliament, built under dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1980s at enormous human and financial cost, is the second-largest administrative building in the world by floor area, a monument to communist- era excess that displaced tens of thousands of Bucharest residents and demolished much of the historic city centre during its construction. It is now open for guided tours, offering an unusually direct look at the scale of Ceaușescu's ambitions.

6. The Transfăgărășan

The Transfăgărășan, built in the 1970s ostensibly for tourism but reportedly also as a military route to allow rapid troop movement in the event of a Soviet invasion, crosses the Carpathians via one of the most dramatic switchback roads in Europe, memorably featured on Top Gear as one of the best driving roads in the world. It is open only in summer, closing with the first heavy mountain snow each year.

7. The painted monasteries of Bucovina

The painted monasteries of Bucovina, in Romania's northeast, are covered both inside and out with elaborate 15th- and 16th-century frescoes depicting biblical scenes, remarkably well preserved despite centuries of exposure to the elements. Several, including Voroneț (celebrated for a distinctive blue pigment known as "Voroneț blue") and Moldovița, are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and remain active monastic communities today.

Romania rewards a Transylvania-focused week (Bran, Peleș, Sighișoara, and the Transfăgărășan) or a longer trip adding Bucharest and the Danube Delta, with car rental generally the most practical way to cover the mountain routes.