The best-known castles in Romania are, for the most part, noble and royal residences from the last two or three centuries rather than medieval strongholds: manor houses of the Hungarian families of Transylvania, boyar palaces in Wallachia and Moldavia, and the residences the Royal House built after 1870. Most are found in Transylvania and along the Prahova Valley, but every region has at least one palace worth a visit. Many went through nationalisation and decades of neglect, and are now being restored one by one and opened as museums.
On the Prahova Valley, Peleș Castle and Pelișor Castle keep their royal interiors almost intact. In Transylvania, Corvin Castle is a genuine Gothic castle, while Bánffy Castle in Bonțida shows how a noble estate is being brought back step by step. Further east, the Palace of Culture in Iași and Sturdza Castle of Miclăușeni round off a route through Moldavia.
Top 20A medieval fortress built by the people of Brașov on a rock in the Bran Pass, later Queen Marie's summer residence and known around the world as “Dracula's Castle”.
Top 20John Hunyadi's Gothic residence, on a rock above the Zlaști river and reached by a long bridge on stone piers; inside, vaulted halls and towers from the 15th century.
Top 20King Carol I's summer residence, built between 1873 and 1914 at the foot of the Bucegi Mountains in Sinaia, with carved wooden interiors, armouries and stained glass.
Top 20The heaviest building in the world, raised by Ceaușescu in the 1980s on Spirii Hill; the guided tour passes through marble-clad state rooms hung with crystal chandeliers weighing several tonnes.
Top 100The Baroque palace of Governor Samuel von Brukenthal on Sibiu's Great Square has housed Romania's oldest museum since 1817: a gallery of European painting with van Eyck, Titian and Bruegel.
Top 100The Neo-Romanian summer residence of the 'Nabob' Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, with a ballroom lined with coats of arms, a terrace facing the Bucegi Mountains and the Nevermore Academy exterior from Wednesday.
Top 100The finest Baroque palace in Transylvania, built between 1774 and 1785 on Cluj's Union Square, with classical statues along its attic; it houses the Art Museum, with five centuries of Romanian and Transylvanian painting.
Top 100The Neo-Gothic palace with a clock tower and carillon in the centre of Iași, built in 1906–1925 as a Palace of Justice; today it houses four national museums of art, history, ethnography and science.
Top 100Transylvania's largest Baroque aristocratic residence, gutted in 1944 and being brought back to life by an award-winning training site; neo-Gothic façade, lapidarium and an exhibition on Miklós Bánffy.
Top 100The royal residence of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, today the seat of the Romanian Presidency and the National Cotroceni Museum: period salons, the king's library, the queen's apartments and Șerban Cantacuzino's rebuilt church.
Top 100A Neo-Gothic palace of the Sturdza boyars, bought in 1862 by Alexandru Ioan Cuza and made the ruling family's residence; today a memorial museum with rooms recreated from Elena Cuza's inventory.
Top 100The temple-castle built by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu in memory of his daughter Iulia, to plans he claimed she gave him in spiritualist séances; today a memorial museum.
Top 100Eclectic castle with towers and a moat, rebuilt in 1894–1896 by the Károlyi family in the middle of a three-century-old dendrological park; inside, period interiors, wax figures and African trophies.
Top 100A masterpiece of Transylvanian Secession architecture, completed in 1913, with a gold-ground mosaic façade, the Hall of Mirrors and its 12 stained-glass windows, a concert hall with an organ and the Mureș County Museum's art galleries.
Top 100The Brâncovenesc palace built by Constantin Brâncoveanu in 1702, with its carved stone loggia, the old kitchen, a church from 1688 and a large lakeside park, 15 km from the centre of Bucharest.
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