In Romania the castle is the easy part. Then come the mountains.
Which Bran Castle day trip actually gets you inside Peleș. What the Transfăgărășan costs once the snow is off it. Whether the salt mine beats the Palace of Parliament on a wet afternoon. Reviews of every tour you can book in Romania.
Bran, the Parliament, the Carpathian bears, a table in Bucharest.
Four days that carry a first week in Romania. What each one costs, and where it actually goes.
01The long day outDracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old TownBran, Peleș and Brașov old town in one run out of Bucharest. Leaves early, gets back after dark, covers the three sights everybody came for.
02The morning in townPalace of Parliament Tickets and GuideCeaușescu’s parliament building, the heaviest structure on earth. Entry is a guided tour on a timed slot and a passport at the door.
03The undergroundSlănic Prahova Salt Mine Ticket and TransferA working salt mine two hours north of Bucharest: four hundred feet down, a steady twelve degrees, and galleries you could fly a kite in. Transfer both ways.
04The eveningTaste Bucharest: A Food Lover’s Tour of Markets & NeighbourhoodsMarket halls, a cellar kitchen and the neighbourhood bakeries, walked between on foot. Skip the hotel breakfast and turn up hungry.
Bran, Peleș, Râșnov, Corvin: four castles, four completely different days.
Romania sells its castles as day trips, and which one you get depends entirely on where you start the morning. Here is what each run covers and what it costs to board.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
Bran and Peleș in a dayThe Bucharest classic. Two castles, Brașov old town, home after dark.
Peleș on its ownThe royal interiors at Sinaia, ninety minutes up the Prahova valley.
Three castles from BrașovBran, the Râșnov citadel and Peleș with far less motorway in it.
Corvin, out westThe Hunedoara fortress, usually bolted onto the Turda salt mine.
All 81 castle days →
Bucharest first, then as much of Transylvania as your week reaches.
A capital of boulevards and communist scale, a Saxon town under the Carpathians, a student city in the north-west, two squares with clocktowers over them, and the mountain resort the royal family built a palace in. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
Half of Europe’s brown bears live in these mountains.
The Carpathians curl through the middle of the country and almost nothing has been done to them. Bears and lynx in the forest above Brașov, a road that climbs to 2,000 metres in hairpins, a salt mine hollowed out under Turda, and pelicans in the delta where the Danube finally gives up.
Bucharest is a boulevard city with a very heavy building at the end of it.
Everything in Bucharest →
The Palace of Parliament takes a morning and a passport. After that the capital is Belle Époque villas, a communist grid poured over the top of them, and an old town that only really starts after nine. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Getting inside the Palace of Parliament
Entry is by guided tour only, on a timed slot, and you hand over a passport or an ID card to get through security. The standard route covers a sliver of the building and still eats an hour.
Forty years of communism, walked
The queues, the blocks, the balcony he spoke from and the district he flattened to build the boulevard. Most of the guides doing this lived through it, which is why it beats the museum.
Market halls, then the cellar kitchens
Obor market for the smoked meat and the sour soups, then small plates and a pălincă somebody insists on pouring. The old town gets loud later; eat before it does.
The days out most travellers in Romania actually take.
See all of Romania →One castle run out of Bucharest outsells everything else on this site by a distance. Here it is, and the seven behind it.
1
Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
Travel from Bucharest to Peleș Castle, Bran Castle, and Brașov with a live English, Italian, or Spanish-speaking guide. Guides such as Otilia, Sonia, Cornelia, Adrian, and Vlad are praised for clear stories and humor. Castle entry is extra, and the 12-hour day can run late.
From · $40
Read our review →
2
Dracula Castle, Peles Castle & Brasov Old Town
from $40
3
Dracula’s Castle, Peleș Castle & Brașov Day Trip
from $23
4
Palace of Parliament Tickets and Guide
from $38
5
Day Trip to Dracula Castle, Peles Castle & Brașov
from $45
6
Bucharest to Dracula Castle, Peles Castle and Brasov Guided Tour
from $33
7
Palace of Parliament Tickets and Guided Tour
from $28
8
Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle and Brasov Day Trip from Bucharest
from $33
What a day out in Romania actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Romania is cheap by European standards and the castle runs are where you see it most.
Old-town walks, palace and museum tickets, the salt-mine transfer, and most of the shared day trips out of Bucharest.
The full days: Bran and Peleș together, the Transfăgărășan, bear watching above Brașov, Turda and Corvin from Cluj.
Private drivers, multi-day Transylvania runs, and the long hauls out to Maramureș and the painted monasteries.
Three things that only happen in Romania.
Church walls painted on the outside five hundred winters ago, a salt mine with a lake and a Ferris wheel in the bottom of it, and a hillside where the country’s rescued bears see out their lives.
The Painted Monasteries
In the far north-east, monastery walls were frescoed on the OUTSIDE in the sixteenth century so a congregation that could not read would still get the story from the yard. The blue at Voroneț has never been matched. Five hundred winters on the exposed north walls and the pigment is still holding. It is a long day from anywhere, which is exactly why so few people make it.
- 1Bucovina Painted Monasteries Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 83 reviews
- 21-Day Bucovina Painted Monasteries tour from Suceava – English★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 33 reviews
- 3Day trip from Iasi to the UNESCO Painted Monasteries in Bucovina★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 26 reviews
The Salt Mines
Turda and Slănic are working mines turned into something else entirely: galleries the size of cathedrals, a few hundred feet down, sitting at a constant twelve degrees whatever the weather is doing above. Turda has a boating lake at the bottom and a Ferris wheel bolted into the chamber. Slănic is the closer one from Bucharest, and the walls there are clear enough to see your hand through.
- 1Slănic Prahova Salt Mine Ticket and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 790 reviews
- 2Salt Mine Guided Day Trip to Slănic★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 559 reviews
- 3Turda Salt Mine, Corvin Castle, Alba Carolina Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 184 reviews
The Bear Sanctuary
Bears pulled out of roadside cages and restaurant yards end up on a wooded hillside near Zărnești, where the enclosure is oak forest with a fence round it rather than concrete with a floor. Around a hundred of them live there now. Visits run at fixed hours in fixed groups, and the keepers do the introductions by name.
- 1Bear Sanctuary, Dracula Castle, and Râşnov Fortress★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 176 reviews
- 2Small group Bears ‘Safari’ on Transfăgărășan -max 7 tourists★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 159 reviews
- 3Brown Bear Watching in the Carpathian Mountains★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 128 reviews
Four things in Romania you cannot arrange on the morning.
Most of this country can be sorted from a guesthouse table the night before. These four run on timed entry, closed days, and a mountain road that spends most of the year under snow.
- 01Palace of Parliament Tickets and GuideEntry is a guided tour on a timed slot and you hand a passport over at the door. The slots go long before the day does.
- 02Small-group max 7 – Top Gear Road – Transfăgărăşan HighwayThe high section is gated by snow for most of the year. It usually opens around the start of July and shuts again in the autumn.
- 03Bear Sanctuary, Dracula Castle, and Râşnov FortressThe sanctuary takes visitors in fixed groups at set hours, and it is closed to the public on some days of the week.
- 04Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old TownPeleș keeps closed days through the week and shuts entirely for maintenance in November.
Romania has a real winter, and it shuts the best road in the country.
From late autumn the Transfăgărășan is gated, the bear hides stand down and the Carpathian trails go under. None of that spoils a trip here: the best rooms in Romania are indoors and warm. Salt galleries at a steady twelve degrees, thermal water under a glass dome, palace interiors, and a cellar with a fire going.
Transylvania is Saxon towns. The vampire is a thin coat of paint.
German settlers walled seven towns here eight hundred years ago and fortified a church in every village between them. Sighișoara still keeps its clocktower over the lane Vlad was born on, and Viscri has barely changed since the last Saxon families left.
Every Transylvania day out →
Romanian food is Balkan, Ottoman and Austrian at the same table.
Sour soups, smoked pork, cabbage rolls under a spoon of sour cream, and a plum spirit poured before anybody asks whether you want one. Book the market walk for the morning and the cellar for later.
By place — capital, Carpathians, Transylvania
By kind of day — castle, mountain, mine or table
Bucharest, Sinaia, Brașov, Sighișoara, Sibiu, Cluj: the road almost every first trip takes.
The reviews that went up last.
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