After leaving Kotor, Montenegro, we made our way to the beautiful country of Romania. Here we’ll discuss how we spent time exploring Brasov Romania for one month – the food, the nature, the history.
Visiting Bucharest Romania
Before heading to Brasov for the month, we first spent a couple of nights in the capital city of Bucharest (not to be confused with Budapest). Bucharest is a really interesting city that feels a bit stuck in communist times – due mainly to the buildings.
We stayed near the Old Town of Bucharest, which was within easy walking distance of many of the popular sites.
On our first full day in Bucharest, we took a free walking tour with Walkabout Free Tours. It was a great tour! It started in Piata Unirii Park, which is home to the largest water fountain in the world, and ended in Revolution Square, where Nicolae Ceaușescu (the former communist leader) was sentenced to death. Some of the other sites to see are:
The Romanian Athenaeum
This building is a beautiful concert hall in the center of Bucharest where the philharmonic orchestra plays. You can either get tickets for a concert or just visit to see the incredible interior. As of 2024, it costs 10 lei (around $2 USD) per person.
Palace of Parliament
The Palace of the Parlament is one of the heaviest buildings in the world weighing around 4,098,500 tonnes (9.04 billion pounds). It’s also the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon. It has a floor area of floor area of 365,000 m2 (3,930,000 sq ft) and around 1,100 rooms. It’s so heavy that it sinks 6 mm (0.24 in) every year due to its weight.
Our walking tour guide helped us book an appointment to visit as you have to schedule ahead of time. It costs about 60 lei (~$12.90 USD) to enter and make sure to bring your passport. The tour takes you to only about 5% of the building even though it’s almost 2 hours long. That’s how large this building is!
Some other things to see include:
Visit The Church of the “Stavropoleos” Monastery: an Eastern Orthodox monastery for nuns that was built in 1724.
Take a walk in one of Bucharest’s many parks: we walked around Grădina Cișmigiu before our appointment at the Palace of the Parlament.
Eat at Caru’ cu bere: Romania surprised us with its food and Caru’ cu bere is a must-visit in Bucharest. It was initially opened as a brewery in 1889. Now the interior is absolutely gorgeous! Make sure to book ahead if you want to sit inside as it fills up quickly. But if you don’t make an appointment, there is usually plenty of seating outside.
Eat at Excalibur: for the most kitschy but unique medieval experience. The food was good, not great, but the experience was fun.
Get a beer at Csíkisör: they serve local, craft beer. My favorite was the ginger chili beer!
Exploring Brasov Romania for One Month
Now on to Brasov. We took the train from Bucharest Gara Nord to Brasov. I purchased the tickets on 12go.asia with no problems. We received our tickets via email and did not need to print them. However, we were unable to select our seats but they do seem to try to accommodate sitting next to each other when purchasing together.
The train station was pretty easy to navigate with a main board showing times and platforms. However, finding our seats on the train was a bit confusing the first time. Each train car has a specific number and the numbers are printed on a piece of paper that is usually in the window. Do not go off of the numbers listed on the train cars themselves. Once in the right car, seat numbers are either located above the seats or on the back of the seats themselves.
The train typically takes about 2.5 hours but can depend on the train you choose. We actually ended up sitting across from another couple from the US so we talked about our travels the whole journey. Be sure to look out the window though, the ride to Brasov, Romania is beautiful.
How We Spent One Month in Brasov Romania
Brasov, Romania immediately hits you with its charm and beauty. We stayed in a perfect location where we could easily walk out the door and into the old town. There are some fabulous restaurants and coffee shops all around the old town.
We particularly enjoyed La Ceaun – Michael Weiss for Sarmales (cabbage rolls) and delicious lemonades. They had the best sarmales we tried in Romania. We also loved going to Sufra for amazing lattes. It was a great spot to work from as it was quiet but with great jazzy music.
What To Do Exploring Brasov Romania
Here are some of the typical things to do and ones we enjoyed while in Brasov:
See the Black Church: built in the 14th century by the local German community The Black Church is one of the most prominent buildings in Brasov. You can visit inside for 20 lei (~$4 USD).
Take the cable car (or hike) up the mountain: get a great view of the city of Brasov and see behind the famous Brasov (Hollywood-esque) sign. The hike could take an hour or two one way and if it’s muddy be careful, it gets very slippery. The cable car costs around 20 lei, I believe round trip. We paid to take it up, but hiked back down. Go early during the week to avoid crowds.
See The “Șchei” Gate and Catherine’s Gate: the Șchei was mostly under construction when we visited and it’s not a hugely interesting site, it just marked the divide in the city between the German and Romanian sides. The Catherine Gate is cool and looks like something you would see at Disney. It was apparently the entrance that Vlad Țepeș’ (Vlad the Impaler) mistress, Catherine used when she went to see him.
Walk the romantic trail to the Black Tower and White Tower: these were some of the towers that surrounded the walls of Brasov and provides great views of the old town.
Enjoy nature: Exploring Brasov, Romania means you’ll be in easy distance to the trails around Tâmpa Mountain. You can easily visit all the bastions. Don’t forget to walk through the beautiful Nicolae Titulescu Park. When we were there they had planted amazing displays of tulips in the park. It also has so many benches, people playing chess, and a great playground for kids.
Walk to The Fortress-on-Straja: this is temporarily closed, although on the last day we were in Brasov, there was a holiday and they opened it up for free for the weekend. It’s a fortification that sits on a hill overlooking the city. It was an important defense construction of medieval Brasov and was completed in 1524.
Visit the Tales of Communism Museum (MAdC): filled with all sorts of stories and memorabilia of Romania’s communist era, this museum was very informative and interesting. It only costs 35 lei (~$8 USD).
Take a trip to Bran Castle
I recommend not buying tickets to go inside – it was definitely not worth it (70 lei/$15USD pp). Bran castle has nothing to do with Vlad the Impaler or Dracula. Vlad never lived there and Bram Stoker did not base Dracula’s castle on Bran. It’s still a cool site to see just walking around it and it’s a beautiful castle on the outside. So you’re better off just walking around the town. The cheapest way is to take the bus for 13 lei (~$3 USD). The bus takes 45 minutes and leaves from Autogara 2 Bus Station. The bus will have a sign that says Bran and you pay the driver directly (cash only).
Take a day trip to Peles Castle
I’m making this one under its own heading because this could be a lot of information. Unlike Bran, this castle is definitely worth the visit. You can easily take a train from Gara de Nord in Brasov to Sinaia. Again, try to get there early as it gets extremely busy. You can buy tickets online here. There are three options for tours. The main one is the basic (1st floor) which is the most popular and gets you the best rooms. We did tour 1 which included the 1st and 2nd floors. That tour cost 100 lei (~$21.50 USD) per person.
Once we arrived in Sinaia, we decided to take a taxi to Peles because the walk was around 30-40 minutes uphill and we were trying to get there quickly. The taxi ride cost us around 25 lei (~$5 USD). So even though we purchased tickets online, we still had to wait in a long line to get inside. It was extremely busy, even though we were there before 11 AM, and walking from room to room was more waddling. But it was still well worth the visit.
After visiting Peles Castle, we took the train to Bușteni to visit Cantacuzino Castle, which was used as Nevermore Academy in the Netflix show Wednesday. We didn’t go inside the castle as they only did tours in Romanian. We had to pay to walk around the grounds though. Not sure that was worth it. If you want to see it, you can just take pictures from the street.
Top Tip: Make sure to purchase train tickets ahead of time if you want a certain time as they tend to sell out.
Visit Another Romanian Town
When exploring Brasov, Romania you can easily take trips to other towns. We chose to visit Sibiu as we were kind of obsessed with the buildings that have “eyes.” Sibiu is pretty small and can be enjoyed in one day. We only stayed for 1 night and it was plenty to see most of the main town.
One of the major things to see is Saint Mary Evangelical Cathedral. It’s a beautiful building and you can go up the steeple for great views of the city. Sean did it, but I couldn’t. The stairs wound up the center of the steeple and I was too afraid of heights to keep going. But it was only 10 lei (~$2 USD) to go to the top.
Anyway, Sibiu is a really beautiful town and definitely worth visiting. At the time we went, which was the end of April 2024, it was much less busy than Brasov but they had a little market set up for Orthodox Easter.
If you have the time, there are a lot of amazing towns in Romania. But our style of travel is slow and we also have to work. So we did not make it to the other places, such as Cluj-Napoca, like we wanted.
Exploring Brasov, Romania for one month has definitely been one of the highlights of this year for us. We absolutely fell in love with the town, the people, the nature, and the food. The food is what shocked us the most – sarmales, papanasi, delicious soups and stews, amazing German food, and tasty, refreshing lemonades! We were not expecting Romanian food to be some of the best we’ve had (great now I’m craving sarmales and papanasi).
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