Romania Bucket List

Wander Transylvanian castles, painted monasteries, and Carpathian meadows of Romania

Discover Romania's medieval castles and folklore

Visit Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Explore the Palace of the Parliament (one of the world's largest and heaviest administrative buildings), stroll through the Old Town (historic center with 19th-century architecture and lively cafes), and see the Village Museum (open-air museum showcasing traditional Romanian village life with over 300 buildings).

Visit Cluj Napoca, the unofficial capital of Transylvania in Romania. Explore the Gothic St. Michael's Church (one of the largest in Romania, with a 76-meter tower), wander through the historic Union Square (surrounded by colorful Baroque buildings), and see contemporary art at the National Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca (housed in a former 18th-century palace). Don't miss the Central Park (with a lake and the iconic Casino building) and try local dishes like varza a la Cluj (cabbage rolls) at a traditional restaurant.

Experience the thrill of driving the Transfagarasan, one of the most scenic and challenging roads in the world, stretching 90 km through the Carpathian Mountains in Romania.

Explore Corvin Castle, also known as Hunedoara Castle, a Gothic-Renaissance fortress in Transylvania, Romania. Built in the 14th century, it features a drawbridge, towers, and a knight's hall. It is one of the largest castles in Europe and is associated with legends of Vlad the Impaler.

Clifftop Transylvanian castle marketed as Dracula’s — worth it either way.

Learn Romanian, a Romance language with Slavic influences

Two students arrange an illegal abortion in Ceausescu's Romania; the New Wave's Palme d'Or.

An old man is shuttled between Bucharest hospitals for a night; black comedy as indictment.

A father in false teeth stalks his consultant daughter around Bucharest; the funniest German film.

Elie Wiesel at fifteen in Auschwitz and Buchenwald; a hundred pages that changed how the Holocaust is written.

Diaries, letters and ship's logs assemble the Count; Stoker invented the vampire we have.

Romania's summit at 2,544 m, on the Fagaras ridge above the Transfagarasan road.

Moldavia's old capital: the Palace of Culture, the Three Hierarchs church carved like lace and the oldest university in Romania.

Where the 1989 revolution began; Secession squares and the first European city lit by electric street lamps.

A Saxon walled town under Mount Tampa, the Black Church and Bran castle down the road.

The ruined Art Nouveau casino on the Black Sea, a Roman mosaic and the beach resort of Mamaia.

The birthplace of Vlad the Impaler inside the best-preserved inhabited medieval citadel in Europe.

Houses with eyes in the roofs, the Bridge of Lies and a Saxon centre that was Capital of Culture in 2007.

Cemetery of brightly painted crosses telling each villager’s life in verse.

Neo-Renaissance royal retreat in the Carpathian foothills at Sinaia.

Cathedral-sized salt chambers with an underground lake and Ferris wheel.

Fifteenth-century monasteries frescoed inside and out, still vivid.