Spending a week in Romania? Here's what you can do:

Destination: Romania
Travel Companion: Graham
Duration: 7 days
Budget: 750$pp (excluding flights)

Disclaimer: I wrote this in March, 2020. Apologies if some of the places I am recommending no longer exist.

We had eight days to spend in Romania; we spent three days in Bucharest and the rest of it road tripping through different towns. I will be sharing what our itinerary looked like but also what we would've done differently if we knew what we know now. You can also find an overview of each town below with main attractions and things to do.

Street in Bucharest

Our Itinerary:
Day 1: Landing in Bucharest in the afternoon and exploring
Day 2: Exploring more of Bucharest
Day 3: Leaving Bucharest to Sibiu, exploring Sibiu in the afternoon and at night
Day 4: Going to Sighișoara for half a day then returning to Sibiu
Day 5: Leaving Sibiu to Brasov and exploring it in the afternoon and at night
Day 6: Leaving Brasov and making a small detour to visit Bran Castle, then driving to Bucegi Natural Park, a bit of walking around the forest
Day 7: Back to Bucharest

Few Fun Facts about Romania

1. Romania has seven walled citadels* (known in German as the Siebenburgen) that are built in the 12th century by German settlers known as Transylvanian Saxons.
2. Romanian language is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

What would I have done differently?

• I would've removed a night in Brasov and added it to Bucegi to get to do more hiking and exploring the area there, it is a beautiful scenery and pure clean oxygen which city people like us need and it took us a while to drive up and down, so might as well make the best of it.
• I would've completely skipped visiting Bran Castle, specially if you are coming all the way from Bucharest just for the day. It's a long and tenuous drive. (more details on why in the section about Bran below)
• I would even skip Sighișoara (even though it's a beautiful town) but these towns kind of tend to look the same. So we could've just spent more time chilling in Sibiu because I felt more at home there.

Transport:

• Trains and Buses are available in most of Romania. We chose to rent a car and move around more freely.
• You can take public transport to and from the airport. We chose to take a taxi, and then their local uber for few times as the cost was quite cheap. 

Recommended Duration:

If you were to adjust the itinerary based on the recommendations I made above, 8 days would remain enough. You can easily extend to 10 days or 14 days if you were to visit other parts not mentioned here or spend few more days in cities and parts of Romania that we thought were worth spending more time in such as Sibiu, Brasov and Bucegi. For Bucharest alone, with a day or two of out of the city trips, 4-5 days would be enough.

Cities Overview

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital of Romania and its largest city. It's still recovering post everything it went through, there are parts in that city that are still destroyed and other parts that are quite modern. A city with a lot of history. I personally enjoyed Bucharest and Romania in general. It has quite a character, good food, great history and a lot of beautiful nature. But most importantly an interesting characteristic about Bucharest, which is also true for many other big cities in Romania, is the fact that their streets already feel like you're walking in an outdoors museum.

For a quick stories highlight overview of Bucharest, you can visit it here.

Things to visit / do in Bucharest:

• The Arch of Triumph
• Calea Victoriei 
• Revolution Square (we did an alternative walking tour that started from there. The guide shared a lot of history but also took us to interesting parts of the city, showcasing street art, cultural moments, trends and clash of old & new)
• Cantacuzino Palace
• The Royal Palace
• Art Collections Museum
• Bucharest History & Art Museum 
• Snagov Monastery
• "Storck" Art Museum
• Communist Iconography Museum
• Saint Apostles' Church
• Stavropoleos Church
• Carturesti Carusel translated to "The Carousel of Light" is a new library, only 5 years old, situated in the heart of old Bucharest. It's a monumental 19th century edifice that was transformed into a beautiful work of architecture. The bookstore is made of 6 floors. 
• Tours: The way we discovered the city is by using Questo app, which is a fun way to discover a city (more below on this app), and almost every corner, every statue, every church has a great history.

Where to eat:

• First Coffee: One of my favorite coffee shops globally. Loved the cozy vibe and they serve amazing coffee and fresh Pain au Chocolat
• Carul cu bere (The Beer Wagon Restaurant): It's more of a landmark, interesting to try, service wasn't great (and it wasn't even that crowded when we were there)
• Hanu' Berarilor Interbelic: Good food and a nice atmosphere
• Origo: Another coffee shop, gets A for creativity in interior design
• Lacrimi si Sfinti: The folded cheese is a really delicious and a must try. We also tried the duck / goose / pork meatballs with mashed potatoes which was really good. The atmosphere is great and so is the service
• Acuarela: A very cute hangout place, recommended for drinks only as they don't have a kitchen there and they order food from other places.

First Coffee - Coffee Shop in Bucharest

Sibiu

Sibiu was the first town we visit after Bucharest and definitely my favorite. It's one of the seven citadels and it's the largest and richest among them. It's around 4 hours by car from Bucharest, so it's worth visiting for at least 2 nights. I could've easily spent 3 there because I really enjoyed how chill this town was. It's a really beautiful town, quite cozy, pedestrian friendly and full of history.

Sibiu

Sections of the medieval wall still guard the historic area, where narrow streets pass steep-roofed 17th century buildings with gable overhangs before opening into vast, church-dominated squares such as Great Square and Little Square.  [Source]

We were sitting in a restaurant on our first night there and thought about exploring the city, so I looked into Getyourguide.com and I found and used for the first time, an app called Questo which allows you to explore the town you're in in a fun and challenging way, unraveling clues that help you move to the next destination. That way you pretty much end up really consumed in learning about these hidden fun facts, and you also end up walking quite a bit, even through streets you've already seen but end up looking at with a fresh eye and notice things you've missed previously. I used it in Bucharest, Brasov and Sighișoara, but the Sibiu game was the best.

 

Things to see in Sibiu:

• Sibiu's Towers: Harquebusiers' Tower (Turnul Archebuzierilor), Carpenters' Tower (Turnul Dulgherilor) and Potters' Tower (Turnul Olarilor), The 16-th century Great Tower (Turnul Gros)
• The Great Square / The Little Square
• Upper Town / Lower Town
• Historic Churches such as: Roman Catholic Church, Ursuline Monastery, Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral
• Brukenthal Palace / Brukenthal Museum
• The History Museum
• The Bridge of Lies
• The Stairs Passage
• The Great Synagogue

Cute quirkly coffee shop in Sibiu

Sighișoara

For several centuries, Sighisoara was a military and political stronghold. During the 14th - 16th centuries, the Saxon craft guilds erected towers around the citadel walls to protect the town from Turkish raids. Sighișoara still stands as one of the most beautiful and best-preserved medieval towns in Europe. [Source]

Sighisoara

Things to see in Sighișoara:

• Sighisoara Citadel with its large numbers of towers including: Blacksmith's Tower, Butchers' Tower, Tailors' Tower, Cobbler's Tower and many more.
• The Citadel Square with its restaurants, craft and souvenir shops
• The Clock Tower
• The Church of the Dominican Monastery
• The Church on the Hill
• The Scholars' Stairs
• Vlad Dracul's House (Casa Dracula)
• The Stag House
• The Venetian House
• The Citadel Towers

Brasov

Fringed by the peaks of the Southern Carpathian Mountains and resplendent with gothic, baroque and renaissance architecture, as well as a wealth of historical attractions, Brasov is one of the most visited places in Romania.

Founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1211 on an ancient Dacian site and settled by the Saxons as one of the seven walled citadels*, Brasov exudes a distinct medieval ambiance and has been used as backdrop in many recent period films. [Source]

As a personal experience, Brasov was nice to visit, and I felt one night was enough. 

Brasov

Things to see in Brasov:

• The Council Square
• The Old Town Hall
• The Black Church
• Brasov's Defensive Fortification (we actually played a game with Questo app in order to get to know this specific part of the city and its bastions): Graft Bastions, White and Black Towers, Blacksmiths' Bastion, Catherine's Gate etc..
• Tampa Mountain
• Tampa Cable car

Another cute coffee shop, this time in Brasov

Bran 

This is where you will find the famous Bran castle, more known as Dravula Castle. As expected, this city is much smaller than the other popular cities, however more crowded with tourists. It has a local sunday-like market and few local restaurants. It is actually a commune in Brasov county. As mentioned above, if I had to redo it, I would've skipped it.  

Bran is on the way to Bucharest when returning from Brasov, so it does make sense as a stop. It is quite a touristy area, and the castle did not live to the hype. In our experience, there was a long queue to enter and visiting the inside of the castle was an underwhelming experience. To be fair though, this could be due to it having been a hot summer with too many people around, who knows! But if you're expecting Dracula to greet you at the castle's gate, perhaps changing your expectations would help. 

On the other hand, if you want to be overwhelmed with history and beauty, I would recommend Sanssouci Palace in Vienna or Chateau de Versailles in France. I would only recommend it if you already exhausted a lot of things to do and visit in Romania, and you still have some time on your hands, also probably better experience when it's low season. A friend of mine visited for Halloween, and as you can imagine, the experience was more fun (in a spooky way).

Bran Castle

Bucegi Natural Park

If you feel like you've had enough with the culture and medieval history, and want to explore nature, you can do some hiking, camping or simply enjoy being in nature. Bucegi Natural Park is around 3-4 hours away from Bucharest depending on traffic.

Bucegi Natural Park is situated in the Meridional Carpatians, the Bucegi Natural Park is one of the most impressive natural resorts in Romania. With more than 15 peaks over 2000 meters altitude - with Omu Peak (2505m) above all - Bucegi Natural Park is considered Romanias touristic cradle. Rising high, massive and bold above the horizon, with fierce peaks and steap valleys, alpine limestone grasslands, caves, springs and waterfalls, the Bucegi Mountains offer a breathtaking view, especially seen from the Prahova Valley. [Source]

Things to do in Bucegi Natural Park:

• Camping
• Hiking
• Visiting Waterfalls
• Geology fun (checking out shapes of peculiar rock formations) 

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