Top 100 attractions in Romania

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 Royal Family's Neoclassical residence in the Mureș valley, with a historic park open for guided tours and the Royal Village, where King Michael's garage is now a car museum; open at weekends, May–October.

The stone stronghold of the princes of Moldavia in Suceava, built by Peter Mușat and strengthened by Stephen the Great, with a bridge over the moat, walls over 10 m high and a display of medieval arms and treasure.

An 8 m conglomerate rock shaped by wind, frost and rain that, from certain angles, looks like a human head; it stands on the Bucegi plateau at 2,216 m, next to Babele.

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.

A thermal and wellness complex on the edge of Bucharest, on the DN1: geothermal pools under a glass dome full of palm trees, water slides, saunas and a sandy beach open in summer.

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.

The last village on the Romanian coast, a kilometre from the Bulgarian border: two kilometres of fine sand, terraces open until dawn and the waters of a marine reserve.

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.