Attractions in Romania

A fortified medieval ensemble in the village centre: a Gothic church left in ruins, a 16th-century bell tower, and an enclosure wall with a gateway.

Romania's oldest mountains, Hercynian granite worn down to 467 m, with rocky ridges, steppe and Balkan woodland, land tortoises and hundreds of migrating birds of prey.

An inn from 1808, built by the merchant and diplomat Manuc Bei beside the Old Court: a listed building with an inner courtyard and wooden balconies, where the 1812 Russo-Turkish peace talks took place.

The former Rally Theatre, a heritage building in Brăila's historic centre, with a richly ornamented façade on Calea Regală, restored with EU funds and still a working repertory theatre.

The largest surviving piece of Timișoara's bastioned fortress, built by the Austrians in the 1730s and restored with EU funds, now home to the National Museum of Banat.

The ruin of a Renaissance residence in Vințu de Jos, built by Cardinal Martinuzzi on the site of a Dominican monastery and remade as a fortress by Gabriel Bethlen; it is now fenced off and awaiting restoration.

The museum of the Memorial of the Revolution Association, in a former military building in Timișoara: clothes and flags from the days of December 1989, a chapel of the hero-martyrs and the only section of the Berlin Wall in Romania.

A Gothic Saxon church from the 14th century, fortified in 1495, in a quiet village among hills, with an enclosure wall, two towers and a gallery painted in 1765.

The cathedral of the Metropolis of Moldavia, consecrated in 1887 in the centre of Iași and home to the relics of Saint Parascheva, which draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every October.

The Orthodox cathedral of the Banat, built between 1936 and 1946 in the Neo-Moldavian style, with a main tower of over 80 m, glazed-tile roofs and a museum of old church art in the basement.

One of Romania's oldest show caves, with a 16 m high entrance arch, vast chambers on two levels and one of the largest bat colonies in the country.

A 17th-century manor given its present look in 1903, set in a park and home to the Mikes Kelemen museum: four memorial rooms for notable people born in Zagon.

A 17th-century Renaissance castle in the centre of Miercurea Ciuc, rebuilt by the Habsburgs as a fortification and now home to the Szekler Museum of Ciuc.

A Classicist castle of 1827 with 19th-century wall paintings, restored with European funds and reopened in September 2026 as the Székely Equestrian Museum.

A 98-hectare former lagoon between Saturn and Venus, with reed beds, open water and sulphur springs where swans, egrets and black-winged stilts stop over; you watch it from the surrounding roads.