Learn about România

România is not a place you simply visit — it is a country that quietly rewrites everything you thought you knew about Europe. Ancient, untamed, and unapologetically itself, it is where Latin spirit survived the collapse of Rome, where Dracula’s shadow still falls across moonlit castles, and where Europe’s last great wilderness begins the moment you leave the city lights behind.

A LAND OF DRAMATIC CONTRASTS

Wedged between the wild Carpathian arc and the black sparkle of the Black Sea, România is a country of extremes. Snow-dusted medieval towns huddle beneath fortress walls while, just hours away, the Danube explodes into the continent’s most breathtaking delta. Golden wheat fields stretch to the horizon in Wallachia, yet in Maramureș time still moves at the pace of horse-drawn hay carts and hand-carved wooden churches that predate Columbus.

THE REAL DRACULA & TRANSYLVANIA’S TIMELESS HEART

Forget the Hollywood vampire. The real Vlad Țepeș — Vlad the Impaler — was a 15th-century prince who defended Christendom against the Ottoman tide with ruthless brilliance. His legend clings to the turreted silhouette of Bran Castle and breathes in the cobbled streets of Sighișoara, the perfectly preserved medieval citadel where he was born. Transylvania itself is pure magic: Saxon villages with fortified churches crowned by stork nests, endless forests where brown bears outnumber people, and misty mornings that feel lifted from a Brothers Grimm tale.

THE PAINTED MONASTERIES — LIVING FRESCOES UNDER OPEN SKY

In Bucovina, in the gentle northeast, lie eight UNESCO-listed monasteries whose outer walls are covered — floor to roof — in vivid 500-year-old biblical scenes. Rain, snow, and centuries of sunlight have failed to fade the impossible “Voroneț blue”. Monks still chant at dawn, smoke from wood-fired stoves drifts between the frescoes, and the silence feels sacred.

THE DANUBE DELTA — EUROPE’S AMAZON

Where the mighty Danube finally meets the Black Sea, it shatters into a 5,800 km² wilderness of floating reed islands, mirror-still lakes, and hidden channels. Home to over 300 bird species and the largest compact reed bed on the planet, this is where pelicans glide like pterodactyls at sunrise and wild horses gallop across water meadows. A slow boat at golden hour, with nothing but the splash of fish and the cry of eagles, is one of Europe’s last truly untouched experiences.

A CUISINE THAT WHISPERS FOREST AND FARM

Romanian food is hearty, honest, and unforgettable: sarmale (cabbage rolls slow-cooked with smoked pork and dill), ciorbă soups sharpened with fermented bran, mititei (“the wee ones” — skinless sausages grilled over open flames), and papanasi, warm doughnuts swimming in sour cream and forest-berry jam. Wash it down with țuică or horincă (plum or pear firewater) and crisp Fetească Regală or busuioacă de Bohotin rosé from vineyards older than many nations.

PEOPLE WHO WELCOME YOU LIKE LONG-LOST FAMILY

Romanians possess that rare gift of making every guest feel they’ve come home. Doors open, glasses are filled, and stories flow late into the night. Whether you’re invited to a village feast in Maramureș or offered a seat at a shepherd’s fire high in the Făgăraș Mountains, the warmth is genuine and overwhelming.
România does not shout its beauty from glossy billboards. It whispers it — in the creak of an ancient wooden gate, in the echo of a Saxon bell tower, in the flicker of candlelight inside a painted monastery. Come slowly. Stay longer than you planned. This is a country that reveals its soul only to those who listen.