Top 100 attractions in Romania

A spa resort more than two centuries old in a narrow valley of the Nemira Mountains: numbered mineral springs you drink from for free, a park with shaded paths and the 1894 Art Nouveau Casino.

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.

A roughly 15 m waterfall on the eastern slopes of the Bucegi Mountains, an hour's easy forest walk from Bușteni; the most visited waterfall in the massif and a classic outing on the Prahova Valley.

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 spa resort more than two centuries old in the Dorna Depression: carbonated springs, peat mud, a park full of squirrels and the Spa Casino, restored and reopened as a museum.

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.