Bran and Peleș fill a morning. The Carpathians take the rest.
Which Dracula day trip really stops at three castles. What a seat over the Transfăgărășan costs. Whether the bear sanctuary is worth leaving Brașov at seven. Reviews of every tour you can book in Romania.
02
03Bran, Peleș, Corvin: three castles, three different days out.
Almost every visitor books one castle day and then wishes they had chosen differently. Bran is the legend, Peleș is the interior nobody expects, Corvin is the one you drive west for. Here is what each costs to board.
The Carpathians still hold brown bears, and you can go and look.
A third of Europe’s brown bears live in these mountains. Book the sanctuary at Zărnești for a guaranteed sighting, a hide above Brașov for a wild one, or a seat over the Transfăgărășan when the pass is open.
Bucharest first, then over the mountains into Transylvania.
A capital of boulevards and concrete ambition, a Saxon town under the Tâmpa ridge, the walled hill where Vlad was born, two squares that ran Habsburg Transylvania, and the student city in the northwest. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Bucharest rewards anyone who books one guide and one ticket.
The whole Bucharest list →
The city reads as chaos from a taxi window and as a story on foot. Get inside the Parliament, walk the boulevards with someone who remembers 1989, then eat your way through the market halls. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the capital.
Getting inside the Parliament
The second heaviest building on earth, and you see maybe five per cent of it. Entry is by timed guided slot only, and the ticket desk turns away anyone without photo ID, so book the slot and carry your passport.
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Bucharest under Ceaușescu
Ration books, queues, the balcony where the last speech went wrong. Guides here lived it, and the walk ends where the shooting started in December 1989. The most useful three hours in the city.
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Market halls and the old town
Smoked sausage and pickles in Obor market, then plum brandy and mici somewhere in Lipscani where the tables spill across the lane. Romanian food makes far more sense once somebody orders for you.
See the full list →Romania’s most booked days out.
Every Romanian tour we have reviewed →Bran and Peleș take the top of this list every year. The interesting part starts around number five, where the salt mines and the bear hides come in.
1
Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
Travel from Bucharest into Transylvania with a live English, Italian, or Spanish-speaking guide. Visit Peleș Castle, Bran Castle, and Brașov Old Town in one long day. Guides such as Otilia, Cornelia, Sonia, Vlad, and Adrian add history and humor, while castle entry fees, lunch, and some walking are extra.
From · $40
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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
Seven hundred years of German villages, still standing behind their walls.
Saxon settlers fortified their churches instead of building castles, and the results still sit at the end of dirt lanes: Viscri with its lime-washed cottages, Biertan on its hill, Sighișoara’s clock tower above the roofs. Most of it is an hour off the Brașov road.
A guided day in Romania costs less than you expect.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Romania is still one of the cheapest countries in Europe to book a proper guided day in.
City walks, salt mine tickets, the shared minibus to Bran and most museum entries.
The full-day standards: three castles in one run, bear watching, the Transfăgărășan in a small group.
Private drivers, two-day Transylvania loops and the trips out to Bucovina or the delta.
Three days out you can only have in Romania.
Castles and mountain roads exist all over Europe. A cathedral-sized salt mine with a ferris wheel in it, a sanctuary for a hundred rescued brown bears, and a road built by a dictator to nowhere in particular do not.
The salt mines
Romania hollowed out its salt for centuries and then turned the holes into something between a sanatorium and a theme park. Turda has a ferris wheel, a boating lake and a mini golf course a hundred metres below the hill. Slănic Prahova, the one most Bucharest trips use, is a plain cathedral of white walls where the air is famously good for the lungs. Bring a jacket: it sits at twelve degrees all year.
- 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
Libearty holds over a hundred brown bears pulled out of roadside cages and hotel car parks, in seventy hectares of oak forest below the Piatra Craiului ridge. Visits run to a fixed morning schedule with a guide, because the bears are fed once and then left alone. It is the one wildlife stop in Romania where nobody goes home without a sighting.
- 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
The Transfăgărășan
Ceaușescu had ninety kilometres of road blasted over the Făgăraș mountains in the 1970s, terrified of a Soviet invasion that never came. It climbs past a waterfall and a glacial lake to just over two thousand metres, and a car programme once called it the best driving road in the world. Snow shuts the top half from late autumn until summer.
- 1Small-group max 7 – Top Gear Road – Transfăgărăşan Highway★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 391 reviews
- 2Top Gear Road Transfagarasan Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 293 reviews
- 3Small group Bears ‘Safari’ on Transfăgărășan -max 7 tourists★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 159 reviews
Four Romanian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a beer in Lipscani. These four run on entry slots, feeding times and a calendar that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Palace of Parliament Tickets and GuideEntry is by timed guided slot with a cap on each one, and the desk checks photo ID against the booking. Walk-ups are routinely turned away.
- 02Bear Sanctuary, Dracula Castle, and Râşnov FortressThe sanctuary runs one guided visit window a day around the feed, with a hard limit on numbers. Miss it and there is no second entry.
- 03Slănic Prahova Salt Mine Ticket and TransferThe high section opens roughly late June to October and shuts the moment snow arrives. Outside that window the tour simply cannot run.
Romania closes its best road for eight months of the year.
From late October the Transfăgărășan gates drop, the mountain hides fill with snow and half the hiking is off. That is not a lost trip, it is a different one. Everything worth doing indoors here is cheap, warm and underground, and the castles look better in the mist anyway.
By place, capital to Carpathians
By kind of day, castle, forest, cellar or road
Bucharest, Sinaia, Brașov, Sighișoara, Sibiu: the loop almost everybody drives first.
SinaiaThe newest Romanian tour reviews.
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