Attractions in Transylvania

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.

Romania's largest glacial lake, at 2,040 m in the heart of Retezat National Park; it can only be reached on foot, after a climb of about two hours from Poiana Pelegii.

A 13th-century count's residence, bought by the Saxon villagers in 1430 and turned into a peasant fortress: a Romanesque keep, two rings of walls and a chapel, in a valley near Sebeș.

The only Székely and Unitarian church in the UNESCO fortified-church site: a Gothic church with 1419 frescoes of the legend of Saint Ladislaus, whose fortress villagers still use to store their bacon.

A 13th-century hilltop fortress on a volcanic hill above Deva, with three enclosures restored by 2024 and wide views over the Mureș valley.

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 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.

One of the largest Saxon fortified churches: a Gothic church on a cross-shaped plan, ringed by an oval wall with over 270 refuge rooms reached by timber galleries.

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.

A Saxon peasant fortress climbing in tiers up a basalt hill above the town of Rupea, first recorded in 1324 and restored in 2010–2013, with wide views over the Transylvanian hills.

The capital of the Dacian kingdom, hidden in the beech forests of the Orăștie Mountains: the walls of Decebalus's fortress, the paved road and the sacred area with andesite and limestone sanctuaries, a UNESCO site.

A Late Gothic Saxon church beside the DN13, with a bell tower modelled on Sighișoara's Clock Tower; on the hill above the village stand the walls of a 14th-century peasant fortress.

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 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.