Top 100 attractions in Romania

A pentagonal bastion fortress built by the princes of Transylvania in the 16th–17th centuries: five bastions, a princely palace housing the Oradea City Museum, and courtyards you can walk into freely.

Romania's largest bastion fortress, a seven-pointed star built by the Habsburgs in 1715–1738 at Alba Iulia; baroque gates, cathedrals, the Union Hall and a changing of the guard, all with free access.

The DN57 runs about 100 km along the Danube from Orșova to Moldova Nouă, through the Great and Small Cauldrons, past the rock face of Decebalus, with Serbia on the far bank.

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.

The narrowest stretch of the Danube Gorge, between Dubova and Ogradena: the river squeezes between limestone walls, with Serbia on the far bank, seen by boat or from Ciucaru Mare.

The 29.35 m column of brass-coated cast-iron modules raised by Constantin Brâncuși in 1938 in Târgu Jiu for the heroes of 1916: the eastern end of the “Heroes' Avenue” ensemble, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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.

A liman lake some 16 km long, 40 km north of Bucharest, between forests, villas and jetties, with a water-lily reserve in the middle and Snagov Monastery on an island.

The highest pass in the Eastern Carpathians: the DN18 climbs from Borșa to 1,416 m between the Rodna and Maramureș Mountains and drops down the Golden Bistrița valley to Cârlibaba, from Maramureș into Bukovina.

The face of the Dacian king Decebalus, carved between 1994 and 2004 into a 55 m rock at the mouth of the Mraconia, on the Romanian bank of the Danube: the tallest rock sculpture in Europe.

Constantin Brâncuși's round stone table with 12 hourglass seats, in the park on the banks of the Jiu: the western end of the Heroes' Way ensemble, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Romania's oldest spa resort, recorded as early as AD 153, in the Cerna valley: hot sulphur springs, a Habsburg old town around the Hercules statue and free thermal tubs on the riverbank.

A spa resort in the Olt gorge between the Harghita and Bodoc mountains: naturally sparkling mineral springs, mofettes, a wellness centre with thermal water and trails up to Falcon Rock.

Better known as Lake Bicaz, it is the largest reservoir on Romania's inland rivers: 35 km of water on the Bistrița, below Mount Ceahlău, held back by a 127 m dam.

The longest developed beach on the Romanian coast: eight kilometres of sand on the spit between the Black Sea and Lake Siutghiol, widened by more than a hundred metres with dredged sand.