Top tourist attractions in Romania
Here is a list of top tourist attractions in Romania. Only the topmost tourist destinations are presented here. To see other destinations, please check the images from Romania section.
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Bran Castle
Tourist attraction
Bran Castle, situated near Bran and in the immediate vicinity of Braşov, is a national monument and landmark in Romania. The fortress is situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia, on DN73. Commonly known as "Dracula's Castle", it is marketed as the home of the titular character in Bram Stoker's Dracula. There is, however, no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad III, voivode of Wallachia, the putative inspiration for Dracula. As discovered by the Dutch author Hans Corneel de Roos, the location Bram Stoker actually had in mind for Castle Dracula while writing his novel was an empty mountain top, Mount Izvorul Călimanului, 2,033 m high, located in the Transylvanian Kelemen Alps near the former border with Moldavia. The castle is now a museum open to tourists, displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie. Tourists can see the interior individually or by a guided tour. At the bottom of the hill is a small open air museum park exhibiting traditional Romanian peasant structures from across the country.
Palace of the Parliament
Stalinist Structure
The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania is a multi-purpose building containing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament. According to the World Records Academy, the Palace is the world's largest civilian building with an administrative function, most expensive administrative building and heaviest building. The Palace was designed by architect Anca Petrescu and nearly completed by the Ceaușescu regime as the seat of political and administrative power. Nicolae Ceaușescu named it the People's House, also known in English as the Palace of the People.
Peleș Castle
Neo-Renaissance Structure
Peleș Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inauguration was held in 1883.
Corvin Castle
Tourist attraction
Corvin Castle, also known as Corvins' Castle, Hunyad Castle or Hunedoara Castle, is a Gothic-Renaissance castle in Hunedoara, in the region of Transylvania, Romania.
National Museum of Art of Romania
Museum
The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937. It features notable collections of medieval and modern Romanian art, as well as the international collection assembled by the Romanian royal family. In 2005, the National Museum of Art opened the exhibition Shadows and Light from 15 July to 2 October. Four centuries of French painting on exhibition turned out to be the largest exhibition of French painting shown in Central and Eastern Europe after 1945. 77 works were exhibited, including masterpieces of painters such as Poussin, Chardin, Ingres, David, Delacroix, Corot, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Braque.
Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in Bucharest
Museum
The Village Museum is an open-air ethnographic museum located in the Herăstrău Park, showcasing traditional Romanian village life. The museum extends to over 100,000 m², and contains 272 authentic peasant farms and houses from all over Romania. It was created in 1936 by Dimitrie Gusti, Victor Ion Popa, and Henri H. Stahl. There are other "village museums" throughout Romania, including ASTRA National Museum Complex in Sibiu, and those of Cluj-Napoca, Râmnicu-Vâlcea, Timișoara, a.s.o.
National Museum of Romanian History
Museum
The National Museum of Romanian History is a museum on Calea Victoriei in Bucharest, Romania, which contains Romanian historical artifacts from prehistoric times up to modern times. The permanent displays include a plaster cast of the entirety of Trajan's Column, the Romanian Crown Jewels, and the Pietroasele treasure. The museum is located inside the former Postal Services Palace, which also houses a philatelic museum. As of 2012, the museum is under reconstruction; a late medieval archaeological site was discovered under the building.
Merry Cemetery
Tourist attraction
The Merry Cemetery is a cemetery in the village of Săpânța, Maramureş county, Romania. It is famous for its colourful tombstones with naïve paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the persons that are buried there as well as scenes from their lives. The Merry Cemetery became an open-air museum and a national tourist attraction. The unusual feature of this cemetery is that it diverges from the prevalent belief, culturally shared within European societies – a belief that views death as something indelibly solemn. Connections with the local Dacian culture have been made, a culture whose philosophical tenets presumably vouched for the immortality of the soul and the belief that death was a moment filled with joy and anticipation for a better life.
Brukenthal National Museum
Museum
The Brukenthal National Museum is a museum, erected in the late of 18th century in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, housed in the palace of Samuel von Brukenthal — who was Habsburg governor of Transylvania and who established its first collections around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania. It is a complex of six museums, which, without being separate administrative entities, are situated in different locations around the city and have their own distinct cultural programmes. The Art Galleries are located inside the Brukenthal Palace and include a number of about 1,200 works belonging to the main European schools of painting, from the 15th to the 18th century: Flemish-Dutch, German and Austrian, Italian, Spanish and French Schools. The Galleries also include collections of engravings, books, numismatics, and minerals. The Brukenthal Library is also located inside the Brukenthal Palace. It comprises approximately 300,000 library units. The Museum of History is part of a building which is considered to be the most important ensemble of non-religious Gothic architecture in Transylvania. The museum initially focused its activities on representing the historic characteristics of Sibiu and its surroundings, but in time it has come to reflect the entire area of Southern Transylvania.
Mogoşoaia Palace
Palace
Mogoșoaia Palace is situated about 10 kilometres from Bucharest, Romania. It was built between 1698-1702 by Constantin Brâncoveanu in what is called the Romanian Renaissance style or Brâncovenesc style, a combination of Venetian and Ottoman elements. The palace bears the name of the widow of the Romanian boyar Mogoș, who owned the land it was built on. The Palace was to a large extent rebuilt in the 1920s by Marthe Bibesco. The Palace had been given to Princess Marthe Bibesco by her husband, Prince George Bibesco, who later also deeded the land to her. She spent all her wealth from the many books she wrote in its reconstruction and it became the meeting place for politicians and international high society, a quiet retreat during the growing turmoil of the 1930s. Prince George died in 1941 and was buried in the small, white 1688 church on the grounds of the Palace. The Palace is now a popular tourist destination, but although the grounds and gardens are beautiful, the interior of the palace itself is under reconstruction and presently houses a museum and art gallery. During the second world war, Prince Antoine Bibesco and his wife Elizabeth Bibesco, refused to flee the country despite their outspoken anti-fascist opinions. Elizabeth spent considerable time during these years visiting Marthe Bibesco at Mogoșoaia and when Elizabeth died of pneumonia on April 7, 1945 she was buried in the Bibesco family vault on the grounds of Mogoșoaia. It may surprise visitors to see her grave here with its poignant epitaph in English - "My soul has gained the freedom of the night." Neither Elizabeth Bibesco's husband, Antoine, nor George Bibesco's wife, Marthe, could be buried beside them, as they both died during the Communist regime.
Museum of the Romanian Peasant
Museum
The Museum of the Romanian Peasant is a museum in Bucharest, Romania, with a collection of textiles, icons, ceramics, and other artifacts of Romanian peasant life. One of Europe's leading museums of popular arts and traditions, it was designated "European Museum of the Year" for 1996. Located on Șoseaua Kiseleff, near Piaţa Victoriei, the museum falls under the patronage of the Romanian Ministry of Culture. Its collection includes over 100,000 objects. First founded in the 1930s by and originally managed by Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş, the museum was reopened February 5, 1990, a mere six weeks after the downfall and execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu. During the Communist era, the building housed a museum representing the country's Communist party; the museum's basement still contains a room devoted to an ironic display of some artifacts from that earlier museum. The building, which uses traditional Romanian architectural features, was built on the former site of the State Mint. The museum was devastated during the June 1990 Mineriad, due to being confused with the headquarters of the National Peasants' Party.
Cozia Monastery
Monastery
Cozia Monastery, erected close to Călimănești by Mircea cel Bătrân in 1388 and housing his tomb, is one of the most valuable monuments of national medieval art and architecture in Romania.
Berca Mud Volcanoes
Tourist attraction
The Berca Mud Volcanoes are a geological and botanical reservation located in the Berca commune in the Buzău County in Romania. Its most spectacular feature is the mud volcanoes, small volcano-shaped structures typically a few metres high caused by the eruption of mud and natural gases.
Scărișoara Cave
Tourist attraction
Scărișoara Cave, is one of the biggest ice caves in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania, in a part of Carpathian chain. It is considered one of the natural wonders of Romania.
Curtea Veche
Building
Curtea Veche, built as a place or residence during the rule of Vlad III Dracula in the 15th century, now operates as a museum in the centre of Bucharest, Romania. The residence was moved under the rule of Radu cel Frumos, who moved the princely residence and the Wallachian capital to Bucharest. In the 16th century Mircea Ciobanul rebuilt it completely and afterward it became the nucleus of the Bucharest, surrounded by the houses of traders and craftsmen. Alexander Ypsilantis built a new princely court in 1775 at Dealul Spirii and the old one acquired its present name. In its current role as a museum, the palace and neighbourhood inspired Mateiu Caragiale to write his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche. It is also at the center of efforts to restore the historic center of Bucharest.
Cotroceni Palace
Palace
Cotroceni Palace is located at Bulevardul Geniului, nr. 1, in Bucharest, Romania. The palace houses the present day offices of the President of Romania and the National Cotroceni Museum.
Statue of Decebalus
Tourist attraction
The Statue of Dacian king Decebalus is a 40-m high statue that is the tallest rock sculpture in Europe. It is located on the Danube's rocky bank, near the city of Orşova, Romania. It was commissioned by Romanian businessman and historian Iosif Constantin Drăgan and it took 10 years, from 1994 to 2004, for twelve sculptors to finish it. The final cost was over one million dollars. Under the face of Decebalus there is a Latin inscription which reads "DECEBALUS REX—DRAGAN FECIT". On the Serbian side facing Romania, there is an ancient memorial plaque commemorating the victories of the Roman Empire over the Dacian kingdom in 105.
ASTRA National Museum Complex
Museum
"ASTRA" National Museum Complex is a museum complex in Sibiu, Romania, which gathers under the same authority four ethnology and civilisation museums in the city, a series of laboratories for conservation and research, and a documentation centre. It is the successor of the ASTRA museum that has existed in the city since 1905. Its modern life started with the opening of The Museum of Folk Technology now The "ASTRA" Museum of the Traditional Folk Civilization in 1963.
Timișoara Orthodox Cathedral
Place of worship
The Timișoara Orthodox Cathedral is a Romanian Orthodox cathedral in Timişoara of the Transylvania region, in western Romania. The building was built between 1936 and 1940. It is dedicated to the Three Holy Hierarchs, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom. It has 11 towers, of which the central and the highest has a height of 96 meters.
Arsenal Park Transilvania
Amusement Park
Arsenal Park Transilvania is an outdoor theme park in Orăştie, Hunedoara County, and reportedly Romania's largest exclusive retreat. It was opened in June 2009 and is the only military themed park in the country and one of the few in Europe. The theme park is located on a 80 hectares plot of land and it involved total investments of US$ 14 million. The location is the former site of an arsenal factory, Rompiro Orăştie specialised in producing explosives, land mines and ammunition, now a four star resort owned by the Timişoara based Bega Group. At completion the theme park will total US$ 26 million of investments.
Cluj-Napoca Bánffy Palace
Building
Bánffy Castle is a baroque building of the 18th century in Cluj-Napoca, designed by the German architect Johann Eberhard Blaumann. Built between 1774 and 1775 it is considered the most representative for the baroque style of Transylvania. The first owner of the palace was the Hungarian duke György Bánffy, the governor of Transylvania. Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and his wife Caroline Augusta of Bavaria were hosted in the palace during their visit in Kolozsvár, between 18 and 27 August 1817. This was the first occasion when a ruler from the Habsburg family visited the city. Franz Joseph I of Austria was also the guest of the palace between 2-4. August 1852 and 22–24 September 1887. The palace features in the reminiscences of an English governess, Florence Tarring, who worked for one of the branches of the Bánffy family during the First World War. In February 1951 the council of the city decided to empty the palace to establish an Art Museum there; the works were finished in the summer of 1954. The museum was opened in the restored palace on 30. December 1965. The cinema occupying the inner yard of the palace was demolished in 1974.
National Military Museum, Romania
Museum
The National Military Museum, located at 125-127 Mircea Vulcănescu St., Bucharest, Romania, was established in 1923 by King Ferdinand. It has been at its present site since 1988, in a building finished in 1898.
Timișoara Zoological Garden
Zoo
Timisoara Zoological Garden is a 6.34-hectare zoo in Timişoara, Romania, located northern-east of the city near Green Forest. It was originally opened in 1986 with 30 species of animals, mostly local to Romania.
National Museum of Contemporary Art
Museum
The National Museum of Contemporary Art is a contemporary art museum in Bucharest, Romania. The museum is located in a new glass wing of the Palace of the Parliament, one of the largest administrative buildings in the world.
Zambaccian Museum
Museum
The Zambaccian Museum in Bucharest, Romania is a museum in the former home of Krikor Zambaccian, a businessman and art collector. The museum was founded in 1947, closed by the Ceauşescu regime in 1977, and re-opened in 1992. It is now a branch of The National Museum of Art of Romania. Its collection includes works by Romanian artists—including a masterful portrait of Zambaccian himself by Corneliu Baba—and works by several French impressionists. It is located not far from Piaţa Dorobanţilor on a street now renamed after Zambaccian. At the time the museum was founded, the act of donation stated that it must be housed in Zambaccian's former home. However, after the 1977 Bucharest earthquake, the Romanian government created the Museum of Art Collections, consolidating many of the city's smaller museums. The Zambaccian collection still resided at the Museum of Art Collections at the time of the Romanian Revolution of 1989; it was returned to its historic location in 1992. Artists in the collection include Romanians Ion Andreescu, Corneliu Baba, Henri Catargi, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Horia Damian, Nicolae Dărăscu, Lucian Grigorescu, Nicolae Grigorescu, Iosif Iser, Ştefan Luchian, Samuel Mutzner, Alexandru Padina, Theodor Pallady, Gheorghe Petrașcu, Vasile Popescu, Camil Ressu, and Nicolae Tonitza, and French artists Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne—the museum has the only Cézanne in Romania—, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Eugène Delacroix, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Maurice Utrillo, as well as pieces by two other artists who worked in France, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso and the Englishman Alfred Sisley. The courtyard features a large sculpture by Romanian sculptor Oscar Han; other sculptors with works in the collection are Constantin Brâncuși, Cornel Medrea, Miliţa Pătraşcu, Dimitrie Paciurea, and Frederic Storck; Storck's own former home, also in the north end of Bucharest, is also now a museum.
Foișorul de Foc
Building
Foișorul de Foc is a 42-metre high building in Bucharest, Romania, between Obor, Calea Moșilor and Nerva-Traian. It was used in the past as an observation tower by the firemen. It was built in 1890, two years after the previous watchtower, Turnul Colței, built in 1715, was demolished. The plans were made by George Mandrea, back then the chief-architect of Bucharest. Foișorul de Foc had a double role, as it was also designed to be a water tower, too. However, after the building was finished, the local water utility company had no pumps powerful enough to fill it with water. Foișorul de Foc was used by the firefighters until 1935, when it became ineffective, as more and more high buildings were built in Bucharest, and introduction of the telephone reduced the need for a watchtower. In 1963, it was turned into a Firefighters' Museum.
Crețulescu Palace
Palace
Creţulescu Palace is a historic building near the Cişmigiu Gardens on the Ştirbei Vodă street nr. 39 in Bucharest, Romania. It has been built for the Creţulescu family at the beginning of the 20th century, by Romanian architect Petre Antonescu. Since 1972, it houses the headquarters of UNESCO's European Centre for Higher Education UNESCO-CEPES.
Dimitrie Leonida Technical Museum
Museum
The Romanian Technical Museum was founded in 1909 by Dimitrie Leonida, inspired by Munchen technical museum, visited during his studies in Charlottenburg Politechnic institute. In 1908, with the help of the first promotions of mechanics and electricians from his school, the first in Romania, Leonida has collected first pieces for the museum. What was different in Leonida museum was the educational orientation of the museum and also the interactivity.
Geology Museum
Building
The National Geology Museum in located on Şoseaua Kiseleff, in Bucharest, Romania. It is located near Victory Square and Kiseleff Park, in central Bucharest. The museum hosts a collection of 80,000 samples of rocks, fossils, and minerals from Romania.
National Transport Museum, Bulgaria
Museum
The National Transport Museum in Rousse, Bulgaria, is situated on the bank of the Danube, in the country's first railway station, built in 1866.
Museum of Art Collections
Museum
The Museum of Art Collections is a branch of the National Museum of Art of Romania and is situated in Bucharest. It contains 44 collections donated to the Romanian State beginning with 1927 by the families of: Hurmuz Aznavorian, Dumitru and Maria Ştefănescu, Josefina and Eugen Taru, Emanoil Romulus Anca and Ortansa Dinulescu Anca, Garabet Avakian, Mircea Petrescu and Artemiza Petrescu, Sandu Lieblich, Sică Alexandrescu, Clara and Anatol E. Baconsky, Sorin Schächter, Céline Emilian, Marcu Beza – Hortensia and Vasile Beza, Alexandra and Barbu Slătineanu, Béatrice and Hrandt Avakian. The museum lapidarium hosts stone carved items of old Romanian art, among which a few pieces extracted from Vacaresti Monastery, demolished in 1986 at President Ceausescu's order.
Rousse Regional Historical Museum
Museum
The Rousse Regional Historical Museum is one of the 11 regional museums of Bulgaria. It acts within the Rousse, Razgrad, and Silistra regions. The museum occuipies the building of the former Battenberg Palace, previously a local court, built 1879–1882 by Friedrich Grünanger. The Rousse Regional Historical Museum was established in 1904. Its basis are the archeological collections of Karel and Hermenguild Shkorpil, as well as of the naturalist Vasil Kovachev, which were gathered in the "Knyaz Boris" men's high school of Rousse. The museum holds approximately 140,000 items, including: ⁕prehistoric pottery and idol plastic arts ⁕the Borovo Treasure of the 4th century BC ⁕the finds of excavations of the antique Danube castles Yatrus and Sexaginta Prista, and of the medieval Bulgarian city Cherven ⁕a collection of medieval frescoes ⁕a collection of exhibits of traditional lifestyle ⁕a collection of urban clothing, china, glass, and silver from the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century ⁕personal belongings of notable figures from the struggle for national liberation ⁕a numismatic collection ⁕a collection of bones from prehistoric mammals, including a unique lower jaw of a Mammuthus rumanus
Jewish Museum
Museum
The Jewish Museum in Bucharest, Romania is located in the former Templul Unirea Sfântă synagogue, which survived both World War II and Nicolae Ceauşescu unscathed. The name has several variants, including Museum of the History of the Romanian Jewish Community. In Romanian it is variously called Muzeul de Istorie al Comunitatilor Evreiești din România, Muzeul de Istorie a Comunitații Evreiești București, etc. The museum gives broad coverage of the history of the Jews in Romania. Displays include an enormous collection of books written, published, illustrated, or translated by Romanian Jews; a serious archive of the history of Romanian Jewry; a collection of paintings of and by Romanian Jews that, while relatively small, consists of works of a calibre worthy of a major art museum; memorabilia from Jewish theaters including the State Jewish Theater; a medium-sized display devoted to Zionism; a small but pointed display of anti-Semitic posters and tracts; two rooms off to a side, one dealing with the Holocaust era from a historical point of view, the other a Holocaust memorial; discussion of both favorable and unfavorable treatment of the Jews by various of Romania's historic rulers; in short, a museum devoted to looking seriously at the history of a particular ethnic group within a society. In contrast to its Hungarian equivalent in Budapest, this is not a museum that sees the exodus of the majority of the country's surviving Jews to Israel as a culmination: this museum is focused more on what that means for those who have stayed, what is the continuing contribution of Jews to Romanian culture, what has been, what is, and what will be the role of Jews in Romania.
Borzeşti Church
Tourist attraction
The Borzeşti church was ordered by Ştefan cel Mare to be built in 1493, with construction lasting from July 9, 1493, to October 12, 1494. Legend has it that the church was dedicated to a child killed during the invasions of the Tatars. The church is designed in a Moldavian style, just as the Războieni Church and the Piatra Neamţ Church. The murals of the church were restored in 2004. The Gothic windows are partially destroyed.
Kaliopa House
Museum
The Kaliopa House, a popular name for the Bulgarian "Urban lifestyle of Rousse" museum, was built in 1864. According to a legend, the house was bestowed upon the beautiful Kaliopa, the wife of the Prussian consul Kalish, by the governor of the Danubian Vilayet, Midhat Pasha, who was in love with her. The facade's design resembles the style of houses in Plovdiv. The frescoes at the upper floor were crafted in 1896. The exposition represents the role of Rousse as a gateway towards Europe, and the influx of European urban culture into Bulgaria at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Sample interior layouts are shown, of a drawing-room, a living-room, a music hall and a bedroom, with furniture from Vienna, as well as collections of urban clothing, of jewelry and other accessories, of silverware and china, which mark the changes present in the daily life of Rousse citizens. The first grand piano, imported into Bulgaria from Vienna, can be seen here.
Archaeology Museum Piatra Neamț
History Museum
The History & Archaeology Museum in Piatra Neamţ, Romania, was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by Constantin Matasă, minister and amateur archaeologist. The museum shelters the most important collection of Cucuteni culture artifacts and it is the home of the Cucuteni Research Centre. The famous piece, Hora de la Frumuşica, can be found on the museum website.
Vergu-Mănăilă House
Museum
The Vergu-Mănăilă house is the oldest surviving building in Buzău, Romania. An 18th century boyar's mansion, renovated between 1971 and 1974, it hosts a museum of ethnography and folk art.
Theodor Pallady Museum
Museum
The Theodor Pallady Museum is a museum situated in one of the oldest surviving merchant houses in Bucharest, Romania. It includes many works by the well-known Romanian painter Theodor Pallady, as well as a number of European and Oriental furniture pieces.