Romania 3 Day Itinerary

Three days is not enough time to see Transylvania properly, but it is enough to fall for it, and that is really what this route is built for. Skip the temptation to cram in a fourth castle. Go slower, eat better, and let Sighisoara’s cobblestones do the talking.

Day 1: Bucharest, Sinaia, Bran

Land at Henri Coanda Airport (still commonly called Otopeni) and ignore anyone in the arrivals hall waving a lanyard and offering you a taxi. That is the classic scam here: a driver in plain clothes quotes a flat fare, then bills you 200 to 400 lei for what should be a 60 to 130 lei ride. Use the touchscreen kiosk in arrivals to book an official taxi with a printed rate, or just open Bolt or Uber, which typically run 50 to 70 lei into the center. The express Bus 100 costs 3 lei and takes about 45 minutes if you want to save money and don’t mind the extra time.

Spend the morning in Bucharest’s Old Town rather than rushing straight out of the city. The Palace of Parliament is worth a guided interior tour if you booked ahead, but honestly the more rewarding hour is wandering Lipscani street and ducking into Stavropoleos Church, a tiny Brancovenesc-style building that gets skipped by everyone chasing the big-ticket sights.

By early afternoon head north to Sinaia, about 90 minutes by car or a similar time on a fairly frequent regional train from Gara de Nord. Peles Castle is the reason to stop here: expect to pay around 25 euros equivalent in lei for full access including the upper floors, and note it closes on Mondays year-round and on Tuesdays too during the off season (mid-October through April). Buy timed tickets online if you can, since walk-up lines in July and August regularly run past an hour.

Continue on to Bran, roughly an hour further. Bran Castle has nothing genuine to do with Vlad the Impaler or Bram Stoker, who never set foot in Romania, but the building itself earns the detour: steep stairways, a real royal history tied to Queen Marie, and decent views over the Carpathian foothills. A priority-access ticket with the torture chamber exhibit runs about 170 lei for adults. Settle into a guesthouse in the village and eat where the tour buses don’t stop; the roadside stalls selling covrigi and local cheese are a better first dinner than most of the formal restaurants near the castle gate.

Day 2: Brasov, Rasnov, Prejmer, Sighisoara

Brasov is a half hour from Bran and deserves more than a drive-through. Walk Rope Street, one of the narrowest streets in Europe, then head into the Black Church, still the largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul, badly scorched in a 1689 fire and rebuilt over more than a century. Council Square below it is genuinely lively rather than performatively so, full of locals rather than only tour groups, especially early in the morning before the coach crowds arrive.

From Brasov, Rasnov Citadel is a quick 15-minute drive and a steep climb, but the peasant fortress at the top gives a far better sense of medieval defensive life than Bran’s polished halls. Prejmer, ten minutes further, holds a fortified Saxon church that is genuinely a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the best-preserved of its kind in Europe, with a maze of storage rooms built into the surrounding walls where villagers once sheltered during Ottoman raids.

Push on to Sighisoara, about 90 minutes away, and arrive with enough daylight to walk the citadel walls before dinner. This is the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, the actual historical figure, and the yellow house on the main square marking his childhood home is real, unlike Bran’s castle claims. For dinner, Casa Wagner on the main square sits inside a genuine 400-year-old building and is atmospheric, though reviews on food quality and service speed are mixed lately; if you want something more consistent, ask your guesthouse for a recommendation on Scolii street instead.

Day 3: Sighisoara, Viscri, Sibiu

Climb the covered stairway to the hilltop church and cemetery before breakfast, when the citadel is nearly empty and the light is best for photos. Then drive about 40 minutes to Viscri, a Saxon village whose fortified church and low white houses look almost untouched, partly because King Charles III personally funded restoration work here for years before he took the throne. Buy a jar of honey or a wool item directly from a village stall; the money stays local and the quality is better than anything sold in Sibiu’s souvenir shops.

From Viscri it is roughly 90 minutes to Sibiu, one of the most underrated cities in the country. The Bridge of Lies in the Small Square and the Council Tower, which you can climb for a rooftop view over both squares, are worth the modest entry fee. Evening in the Large Square is the best way to close the trip: outdoor tables fill up fast on weekends, so book ahead in summer rather than hoping to walk into a seat.

Practical notes

Romania is an EU member but only partially joined Schengen in March 2024, covering air and sea borders; land border checks with non-Schengen neighbors can still apply. Travelers from the US, UK, Canada, and most of the EU do not need a visa for short stays, but visa-exempt nationalities will need to register through ETIAS once it becomes mandatory later in 2026, so apply online at least 72 hours before departure if that affects you.

The currency is the Romanian leu, not the euro and not the Polish zloty. Cards are accepted almost everywhere in cities and larger towns, but keep small cash for citadel entry fees, parking, and rural stalls where card machines are unreliable. Trains connect the main towns on this route reasonably well, but a rental car gives far more flexibility for Rasnov, Prejmer, and Viscri, none of which sit directly on a rail line.