How many days do you need in Romania?
Six days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Romania, across Bucharest, Brașov and the Carpathians, and Sibiu.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Romania · 6 days Bucharest → Brașov and the Carpathians → Sibiu
Best time: May, June, and September for warm days, open mountain roads, and green Carpathian valleys.
Bucharest: Palace of the ParliamentDay 1
🏛️9:00 AMPalace of the Parliament
The heaviest building in the world, ordered by Ceaușescu, requiring the demolition of a whole district and still only partly used. Guided tours cover a fraction of its 1,100 rooms and are booked ahead with ID.
🚗 ~10 min · 2.9 mi
🖼️1:30 PMDimitrie Gusti National Village Museum
Over 300 original peasant houses, churches, and windmills moved from every region and rebuilt on the lakeshore. An open-air crash course in the country you are about to travel through.
🚗 ~10 min · 2.8 mi
🌆6:00 PMLipscani and the Old Town
The surviving merchant quarter of narrow streets, now the nightlife core, with an eighteenth-century monastery courtyard tucked between the bars.
Bucharest: Romanian AthenaeumDay 2
🏛️9:00 AMRomanian Athenaeum
A domed 1888 concert hall funded by public subscription, with a circular fresco of Romanian history around the auditorium. Go to a concert if you can; the daytime peek is a poor substitute.
🚗 ~8 min · 2.2 mi
🥾1:30 PMKing Michael I Park and Herăstrău Lake
The city's big northern park around a lake, with boat hire and shaded paths. Where Bucharest actually spends its weekends.
🚗 ~8 min · 2.3 mi
🎟️6:00 PMCommunism walking tour
The demolitions, the systematisation plan, the queues, and the December 1989 days, walked between the buildings where they happened. The essential context for this city.
Arrive in Brașov and the CarpathiansDay 3
🚄8:30 AMTrain to Brașov and the Carpathians
Bucharest Gara de Nord to Brașov in about 2h30 to 3h on frequent InterRegio services, climbing the Prahova valley past Sinaia. Sit on the left for the mountains. Reserve a seat in summer; this is the busiest domestic line in the country.
🚄 ~2h45 · 90 mi
🏛️2:00 PMBlack Church
The largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul, begun in the 1380s and scorched black by the great fire of 1689. Inside is a large collection of Anatolian carpets, gifts from Saxon merchants.
🚶 ~2 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 445 ft
🌆6:00 PMCouncil Square
The wide Saxon market square of pastel merchant houses, with the old council house in the middle and the mountain rising straight behind it.
Brașov and the Carpathians: Peleș CastleDay 4
🏛️9:00 AMPeleș Castle
A Neo-Renaissance royal residence at Sinaia, finished in 1883 and one of the first castles in Europe with central heating and electricity. Closed Mondays, and shut entirely for maintenance in November.
🚗 ~67 min · 19 mi
🖼️1:30 PMFirst Romanian School Museum
In the Schei district beyond the old Saxon walls, where Romanians were required to live: early printing presses and the first books in the Romanian language.
🚗 ~47 min · 13 mi
🎟️6:00 PMCastles day trip
Peleș and Bran in one guided day, with Râșnov often added. Doing it guided mainly solves the timings and the closure days, which catch people out.
Brașov and the Carpathians: Bran CastleDay 5
🏛️9:00 AMBran Castle
A genuine fourteenth-century fortress on a rock at the Transylvanian pass, well worth seeing. Its Dracula billing is a twentieth-century invention: Vlad III almost certainly never lived here, and Stoker never visited Romania.
🚗 ~48 min · 14 mi
🥾1:30 PMMount Tâmpa
The forested peak directly above the old town, reached by cable car or a switchback hour on foot, for the view straight down onto the red roofs.
🚶 ~14 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.5 mi
🌆6:00 PMRope Street
One of the narrowest streets in Europe at just over a metre wide, built as a fire corridor. Thirty seconds of your life and everyone does it.
Arrive in SibiuDay 6
🚄8:30 AMTrain to Sibiu
Brașov to Sibiu in about 3h to 4h by direct train through the Olt valley, or roughly 2h30 by road. Drivers in season can take the Transfăgărășan instead, which turns the leg into the day's main event.
🚄 ~3h · 76 mi
🏛️2:00 PMBridge of Lies
The first cast-iron bridge in Romania, 1859, which local story says creaks when someone standing on it tells a lie. It creaks constantly.
🚶 ~1 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 273 ft
🌆6:00 PMGrand Square and Little Square
The linked Saxon squares at the centre, joined by the Council Tower, lined with guild houses under the famous eye-shaped dormers.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.
This is one of 126 free itineraries. Open it, change anything you want, and it becomes your trip.