Attractions in Transylvania

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.

The 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.

The Saxon church on the hill in the middle of the village, guarded by three rings of walls and towers; inside, Romania's largest polyptych altarpiece and a door with a lock from 1515.

Romania's largest open-air museum, in the Dumbrava forest outside Sibiu: over 300 houses, mills, workshops and wooden churches brought from across the country, along ~10 km of paths.

Romania's biggest tiered waterfall, dropping about 60 m over the lower step of the Bâlea cirque in the Făgăraș Mountains; an hour's walk up from the Bâlea Cascadă chalet on the Transfăgărășan.

The Saxon church in a vineyard valley near Mediaș, with its choir turned into a defence tower, an almost intact oval wall and a wood-and-iron portcullis that has survived for centuries.

A 14th-century Gothic church built by the noble Apafi family, with the largest ensemble of Gothic frescoes in Transylvania and a polyptych altarpiece that has stood in place for more than five centuries.

A Romanesque basilica from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, left almost unaltered, on the rocky top of St Michael's Hill, ringed by a defensive wall and looking out to the Făgăraș Mountains.

A small Saxon stronghold on the hill of a village at the end of the road, with four restored towers housing small museums of village life; winner of a Europa Nostra award in 2024.

A spa resort 15 km from Sibiu with salt lakes formed where old salt mines caved in: in summer you swim in water that keeps you afloat, between white banks of salt.