6 day itinerary for Romania and the Transylvanian region
Summary
Romania, and in particular Transylvania, conjures up images and feelings of some far off place . . . in the mountains . . . in the forests . . . with castles . . . kind of like Lord of the Rings, but with a spooky vibe . . . and indeed it is all of this. And while there are not as much of a concentration of stellar attractions as you would get in Western Europe, that is kind of Romania’s charm and it makes for a great roadtrip for a week or so, with the itinerary below
highlights
#1 Driving the sensational "Best Road in the World" - the Transfagarasan Road crossing the Transylvanian Alps
#2 Getting that spooky Transylvanian vampire feel in the evenings
#3 Walking through the Sighisoara Citadel with its gorgeous pastel-coloured buildings, fortified walls, cobbled lanes and overlooked by its church on top of the hill
#4 Exploring Bran Castle and learning the non- Dracula history of the place
#5 Seeing the world’s largest Parliament building in Bucharest
#6 Driving the non-highway route from Sighisoara to Sibiu via Biertan as you pass by some of the lesser known old Saxon towns and with views of the brooding Transylvanian Alps
#7 Seeing some of the local wildlife up close as you drive through the Transylvanian mountains
#8 Wandering through the Historic Centre of Bucharest and seeing some of the beautiful old buildings
#9 Exploring the Fortified Church and village of UNESCO-listed Viscri. It felt incredibly real and you can easily imagine what it must have been like to try and defend it
#10 Being fortunate enough to be exploring an region where even your hotel room has 500+ year old murals
#11 Seeing the Poienari Citadel - the legitimate castle of Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula
The Route
#12 Visiting the stunning churches and monasteries in Curtea de Arges’ Princely Court
Rough itinerary
Travel Tips
Most of the tips are in the individual travel entries of A day in Bucharest, Driving through Transylvania’s Fortified Saxon villages and exploring Bran Castle and Driving the Transfagarasan Highway of the Transylvanian Alps, but I’ll list below some general tips for traveling in Romania:
- For the above itinerary, you realistically need a car. I think you could do it without one, but maybe not within 6 days and certainly not enjoying being able to nip to the small Saxon villages or driving the Transfagarasan. We rented one from the Bucharest airport for the 6 days and came to USD700 with everything factored in
- Romania is super cheap – for example far cheaper than nearby Hungary or the Balkan countries, so you could do the above itinerary far cheaper if you wanted to
- The local people are super friendly –they really are wonderful once you break the often initially stern look and tone and typically just want to help, but they can often be a bit too eager to please. I know this is kind of traveler 101 advice, but just be aware of the answer of “yes” to everything
- Back in time – outside of Bucharest, many of the hotels, restaurants and general infrastructure is super dated. As in think more along the lines of horses and cart. This 100% adds to the experience, but just be aware
- The itinerary is for September – which has warm spots but be prepared for it to get cold – it was 3 degrees Celsius / 37 Fahrenheit in our first morning in Brasov
- Safety – you hear stories of petty crime in Romania, particularly in Bucharest and Brasov, but we had no problems at all. People were super friendly throughout
- Things we missed out on – one thing I think would have been cool to include in the above itinerary would have been the Salt Mines of Salina Turda. Left for next time!
- The driving route – took a total of around 11 hours of driving and you can see here in google maps the details of the route Google Maps Route Romania
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Country-wide experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone