Regions and cities
Bucharest is where most visitors land: wide boulevards, the vast Palace of Parliament and a lively Old Town, all in our Bucharest guide. North of the capital, Transylvania holds the Carpathian foothills, Brașov, Bran Castle and the walled town of Sighișoara, which is on the UNESCO list. So are seven Saxon villages with fortified churches, Viscri among them. Bucovina, in the north-east, has painted churches whose outer walls are covered in frescoes; UNESCO lists eight of them, built between the late 15th and late 16th centuries. Maramureș, in the far north, has eight timber churches with tall, slim towers, also on the UNESCO list. In the south-east the Danube Delta is, in UNESCO's words, the largest and best preserved of Europe's deltas, home to more than 300 bird species. The Carpathians arc through the middle, with mountain roads and forest walking, and the Orăștie Mountains hold six Dacian fortresses.
Swap it: Transylvania and Bucovina for Prague, Budapest or Vienna, and the Danube Delta for a week of Croatian island-hopping. You get painted monasteries, village guesthouses and long quiet drives, usually at a lower daily cost. You give up easy rail hops between neighbouring capitals, a sea-swimming coastline and some of the polish.
