National parks and reserves

Europe's largest wetland, a biosphere reserve and UNESCO site: channels, lakes, reed beds and over 300 bird species, from pelicans to egrets; visited by boat from Tulcea.

A glacial lake at 2,034 m in the Bâlea cirque of the Făgăraș Mountains, at the top of the Transfăgărășan; reachable by car in summer and by cable car all year round.

Romania's most visited cave: 488 m of lit galleries beneath the village of Chișcău, full of stalactites and stalagmites, with the bones of some 140 cave bears left where they were found.

A roughly 90 m waterfall that drops in several tiers down a limestone wall in the Rodna Mountains, above the resort of Borșa; reached by chairlift and a short forest walk.

Romania's largest natural bridge and the only one in the world carrying a public road: a 30 m limestone arch left standing after a cave roof collapsed, in the village of Ponoarele on the Mehedinți Plateau.

The moss-covered tufa waterfall in the Miniș gorge, exactly on the 45th parallel and once famous worldwide; it partly collapsed in 2021 and is regenerating naturally, a few steps from the DN57B road.

The stone mushrooms of the Bucegi plateau, at ~2,200 m: conglomerate rocks worn by wind, frost and rain, a few minutes from the Bușteni cable car and the Sphinx.

Romania's only volcanic lake: an almost round sheet of water in the Ciomatu crater, ringed by forest, with a Catholic chapel on the shore and the Mohoș peat bog in the neighbouring crater.

A heliothermal salt lake in Sovata, formed in 1875 over a salt massif: beneath a thin layer of fresh water the salt water goes above 40 °C in summer; a lido runs on the shore in season.

A natural dam lake formed in 1837, when a mountainside blocked the Bicaz valley; the trunks of the drowned forest still rise from the water, at the upper end of the Bicaz Gorge.

An 8 m conglomerate rock shaped by wind, frost and rain that, from certain angles, looks like a human head; it stands on the Bucegi plateau at 2,216 m, next to Babele.

A roughly 30 m, two-tiered waterfall at the foot of the Vlădeasa massif, on the Stanciului valley near Răchițele; the water fans out over the rock like a veil, and in winter the frozen wall is an ice-climbing spot.

The roughly 1,100 ha Neajlov marsh in Comana Natural Park, with channels, reed beds and waterbirds, less than an hour from Bucharest; seen by small boat, rowing boat or kayak.

The last wild beach at the southern edge of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve: shell-strewn sand, dunes and a low earth cliff, with no hotels, sunbeds or lifeguards.

A cave crossed by a mountain stream north of Petroșani, with a 20 m-wide portal and a gallery of about 466 m walked end to end on footbridges, beneath the Dacian fortress of Bănița.