Romania Discovery Guide

Romania has the largest unbroken tract of old-growth forest in Europe outside Russia, the continent’s biggest populations of brown bear, wolf and lynx, and villages in Maramures and Transylvania where people still farm with horses and scythes because it works.

It also has the painted monasteries of Bucovina, whose exterior frescoes have survived five centuries of weather; the fortified Saxon churches of Transylvania, seven of them UNESCO-listed; and Sighisoara, a lived-in medieval citadel.

The Danube Delta is the second-largest river delta in Europe and a birding site of international importance. The Transfagarasan and Transalpina roads cross the Carpathians at heights that close them half the year.

Bucharest is a strange, compelling city of belle epoque villas and Ceausescu’s megalomania. And the whole country is inexpensive and much less visited than it should be.

The Transylvanian circuit

Brasov as a base, with Bran and the far better Peles Castle at Sinaia, then Sighisoara, the Saxon villages around Viscri, and Sibiu. Add Cluj and the salt mine at Turda. A week, best by car.

If you want the mountains

The Transfagarasan over the Fagaras range and the Transalpina, both spectacular and both seasonal. Walking in the Piatra Craiului or the Retezat, where the wildlife is.

If you want the north

Maramures for wooden churches with shingled spires, the Merry Cemetery at Sapanta with its painted and often rude epitaphs, and farming that has changed little. Then over to Bucovina for the painted monasteries — Voronet, Sucevita, Moldovita — frescoed inside and out.

If you want the delta

The Danube Delta from Tulcea, by boat into the channels and reed beds, staying in a fishing village. Pelicans, herons and more than three hundred bird species.

If you want the cities

Bucharest for the Palace of the Parliament, the old town and the belle epoque quarters; Timisoara, where the 1989 revolution started; and Cluj, which is young and lively.

Romania is a Latin country in a Slavic and Hungarian neighbourhood, Orthodox in religion, and shaped by the fact that it was ruled from elsewhere for most of its history.

A Latin island

Romanian descends from the Latin of Roman Dacia and is the only Eastern Romance language spoken as a state language, which Romanians regard as central to who they are. Italians and Spaniards can catch a surprising amount of it.

Orthodoxy

Around four-fifths of Romanians are Orthodox, and it is practised — saints’ days, fasting periods, and Easter as the year’s great event, with the midnight service and the greeting Hristos a inviat.

Village life

A large part of the population still lives rurally, and in Maramures and parts of Transylvania that means haymaking by hand, horse carts, and a calendar of customs that are observed rather than performed.

Many peoples

Transylvania was Hungarian-ruled for centuries and has a large Hungarian minority with its own schools and press; the Saxons, German-speakers settled from the twelfth century, built the fortified churches and largely emigrated after 1989. A substantial Roma population faces serious discrimination.

The communist shadow

Ceausescu’s regime was among the harshest in the bloc and ended in his execution on Christmas Day 1989. It is discussed openly and with more bitterness than nostalgia.

Romania’s old-growth forests are being logged, including illegally and including inside protected areas, and it has been a serious scandal. Choosing accommodation and guides who are part of conservation or eco-tourism networks puts money on the other side of that argument.

Bear tourism needs care. Romania has around six thousand brown bears and a real conflict problem, worsened by people feeding them at roadsides — which has killed both bears and tourists. Never stop to feed or photograph a bear from a car. Watch from a proper hide with a licensed guide instead.

Village tourism is where the money does most good. Guesthouses in Maramures, the Saxon villages around Viscri and the Apuseni mountains keep households and traditional farming viable, and the difference a visitor makes there is real.

Buy the crafts — the pottery, the woven textiles, the painted eggs — from the people who made them.

On the Roma question: exploitative “gypsy village” tours exist and should be avoided. Prejudice is widespread and worth not repeating.

May to June is the finest window: wildflower meadows in Transylvania, everything green, bears active, and the mountain roads opening. September to October is the other one, with harvest, forest colour and stable weather.

July and August are hot — Bucharest and the southern plain regularly exceed 35°C — but are the only reliable months for the high Carpathians and the Black Sea coast. The Transfagarasan is normally open only from late June to October, and this catches people out constantly.

Winter brings skiing at Poiana Brasov and Sinaia, Christmas and Epiphany customs in the villages that are still genuinely practised, and very cheap travel. Roads in the mountains can be difficult.

Birding in the Danube Delta peaks with spring migration in April and May.

Orthodox Easter, which usually falls later than the Western date, is the biggest event of the year.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

Romania is among the cheapest countries in the EU, and a pensiune in a village with meals included is remarkable value.