Bustling Bucharest, home to superb museums and the over-the-top palace of a former dictator, offers a startling contrast to rural regions such as Transylvania, home to brown bears, Saxon towns and Count Dracula. Age-old ways live on in Bucovina, with its elaborately painted churches, and in Maramures, where vineyards and wood carvings have equal appeal.
BUCHAREST
In Romania’s energetic capital, it’s hard to miss the evidence of its relatively recent history. The skyline-dominating Palace of the Parliament is a colossal reminder of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s overblown ambition to create an ideal socialist city, sweeping away 500 hectares of the city’s historic centre in the process. The surviving three-quarters of the Old Town, also known as Lipscani, offers an insight into how Bucharest earned its interwar nickname of ‘Little Paris’. Wander its maze of streets to discover bars, cafés and restaurants in buildings showcasing architectural styles from Art Deco to Neoclassical. Between jaunts to museums devoted to Romanian peasants, medieval paintings and contemporary art, there are tree-lined boulevards and parks for civilised strolls – the prelude, perhaps, to a classical concert under the dome of the graceful Athenaeum. Its lavish décor is more than matched by that of Ceaușescu’s palatial former home, whose gold-and-marble opulence you can experience on a private tour.
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TRANSYLVANIA
Brimming with legend and history, ‘the land beyond the forest’ occupies a sprawling plateau all but encircled by mountains in the heart of Romania. Transylvania’s predominantly rural landscape of woods, meadows and rolling hills laced with rivers and streams is dotted with picturesque settlements built by wave after wave of new arrivals from the west and north. Among the most notable are the towns established from the 13th century onwards by German-speaking merchants, such as Brașov, Sibiu and Sighișoara. In Brașov, cobbled lanes lead to medieval walls and watchtowers, the Gothic Black Church and squares lined with fine buildings. Sibiu’s equally well-preserved Old Town is notable for the eye-like curved dormers on many of the roofs, while at Sighișoara, the birthplace of Vlad Țepeș ‘the Impaler’, the magnificent 12th-century citadel has earned a UNESCO listing. Out in the countryside, imposing castles such as Râșnov, Corvin and Bran – the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula – look out over wildernesses where wolves and brown bears roam.
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BUCOVINA
This historic northeasterly region of mountains, rolling hills and the beech groves that inspired its name is the setting for one of Romania’s most eye-catching World Heritage Sites: the eight ‘Painted Monasteries’ whose churches are completely covered in murals featuring angels, saints and scenes from the Bible. Of these showpieces of Byzantine art, Voronet is perhaps the most famous; the most striking colour used in its frescoes is even known as ‘Voronet blue’. These are far from being Bucovina’s only significant churches, though. Putna was built by Stephen the Great in 1466 and his finely decorated tomb here has long been a place of pilgrimage. Intersperse ecclesiastical masterpieces with nature’s best works; Cheile Bicazului-Hășmaș National Park’s dramatic gorges and towering limestone cliffs are a scenic joy. Or plunge into the bowels of the earth at Cacica’s salt mine, still worked by hand after 220 years, whose underground caverns contain chapels with bas-relief decorations, a ballroom and even a football pitch.
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MARAMURES
Maramureș owes the remarkable survival of its tapestry of local traditions, ancient crafts and rural way of life to its mountainous terrain. The UNESCO-listed stars of this once-isolated forested region in Romania’s northwest are the churches made entirely of hard-wearing oak in a vernacular Gothic style, built between the 17th and 19th centuries. The simplicity of their graceful exteriors makes the naively painted mural inside all the more surprising. With four-fifths of the region covered in beech forests, wood has long been the raw material of choice for everything from household items to decorations such as the impressive gateways to many village houses. Browse craft fairs, markets and small shops in villages such as Săpânța – whose Merry Cemetery is crammed with vividly painted headstones – in search of beautifully handmade carvings, fabrics and baskets. Celebrate your purchases with a glass of sparkling wine from the country’s most northerly vineyards.
