Attractions in Transylvania

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.

A narrow limestone gorge in the Piatra Mare Mountains near Brașov, with seven rock steps climbed on metal ladders and walkways; at the top you can ride a zip line back down.

A small white church on the hill above the village, grown from a 12th-century Romanesque chapel and ringed by walls, towers and grain galleries, in a Saxon village that has survived almost intact.

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.

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 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.

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 modern spa complex in Ocna Mureș, opened in 2023, with heated salt-water and fresh-water pools, saunas and treatments. It is above ground only: the old salt mine cannot be visited.

A lido with two salt lakes formed where old salt mines caved in, 24 km from Cluj-Napoca, plus an indoor pool of warm salt water that stays open all year.

A Renaissance hunting manor of the Counts Kálnoky, begun in 1648, with bastions and rare stucco work, restored and opened in 2017 as the Museum of Transylvanian Life, with guided tours.

A Dacian fortress on Cetățuia hill, at the gateway to the Orăștie Mountains: earth ramparts, a stone wall built in the Hellenistic manner, tower houses and temples, a UNESCO site.

A 13th-century Romanesque basilica enclosed by 12 m walls with seven towers, with the tallest bell tower in the Burzenland and a chapel of 15th-century Gothic frescoes.

The wooded 960 m mountain that rises straight out of central Brașov: the “BRAȘOV” letters, views over the old town, a nature reserve, marked trails and a cable car from its foot.

The oldest museum in Székely Land, in a building designed by Kós Károly in 1911–1912: history, ethnography, natural sciences and a garden with Székely gates.

Romania's largest Gothic church, built by the Saxons of Brașov between 1383 and 1477; inside are the 1839 Buchholz organ and a rare collection of Anatolian carpets.