Romania

Romania's eclectic capital mixes Belle Époque elegance with communist-era brutalism and a booming nightlife and cafe scene. Gateway to Transylvania's castles and Carpathian Mountains.

Transylvania's most beautifully preserved Saxon city sits in a Carpathian amphitheatre 625m above sea level — Mount Tâmpa rises directly above the old town with the famous Hollywood-style 'BRAȘOV' sign. The 14th-century Black Church (largest Gothic church in southeastern Europe), Council Square ringed by pastel Saxon merchant houses, and Strada Sforii (one of Europe's narrowest streets at 1.11m wide) anchor the UNESCO-quality old town. Bran Castle (Dracula marketing notwithstanding) is 30km away; the Poiana Brașov ski resort 12km. Founded in 1211 by the Teutonic Knights as one of the seven Saxon walled cities of Transylvania.

Romania's second city and the unofficial capital of Transylvania — a 14th-century Saxon merchant town now reborn as the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe. Four universities pump 100,000 students through Piata Unirii every year, the Gothic St. Michael's Church spire dominates the skyline, and Untold Festival fills August with 400,000 electronic music fans. Budget airlines from across Europe land at CLJ in 90 minutes from London or Berlin, the cafe scene rivals Berlin at a quarter the price, and you are six hours by train from Bucharest with the Apuseni Mountains an hour away.

The most polished of the seven Saxon walled cities of Transylvania — a UNESCO-listed medieval centre founded by German colonists in 1190 and stitched together by tiered Upper Town and Lower Town squares connected by the Liars' Bridge. The houses with the famous narrow attic windows, the eyes of Sibiu, peer down from terracotta rooftops onto Piata Mare. The Brukenthal National Museum, opened in 1817, is one of the oldest in Eastern Europe; ASTRA, on the southern outskirts, is the largest open-air ethnographic museum in Europe. Sibiu was the 2007 European Capital of Culture and has stayed at that level since.

The only inhabited fortified medieval town in southeastern Europe still in continuous use — a UNESCO World Heritage citadel of cobbled lanes, pastel Saxon townhouses, and nine surviving guild towers wrapped around the hilltop above the Tarnava Mare valley. The Clock Tower's hour-marking automatons have rotated since 1648, the covered wooden Scholars' Stairs from 1642 climb 175 steps to the Church on the Hill, and the ochre house at Strada Cositorarilor 5 is the registered birthplace of Vlad the Impaler in 1431. Two and a half hours by train from Brasov puts you inside the walls by lunch.