Romania 6 Day Itinerary

Bran Castle has almost nothing to do with Vlad the Impaler and everything to do with a marketing decision made decades after Bram Stoker never actually visited Romania. Knowing that going in changes how you see the place, and it does not make the visit less worthwhile.

Day 1: Bucharest

At the airport, skip the unmarked yellow cars idling right outside arrivals; Bucharest’s airport taxi scams are notorious enough that even locals warn visitors specifically about hand-painted, no-name cabs with manipulated meters. Use the touchscreen taxi dispatch inside the arrivals hall or book Uber or Bolt, and expect a fair rate around 2.50 lei per kilometer.

Spend the day on the Palace of Parliament, the second-largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon, and a genuinely absurd monument to Ceaușescu-era ambition worth the guided tour rather than a photo from outside. Walk the Old Town’s patchwork of restored and half-restored facades, then Calea Victoriei and Revolution Square, where the 1989 uprising against Ceaușescu actually began. EU, US, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese passport holders do not need a visa for stays under 90 days, but double check your specific nationality before booking, since requirements shift.

Day 2: Sighișoara and Bran Castle

Take a morning train toward Brașov, the base for this stretch of Transylvania; Bucharest to Brașov runs about two and a quarter hours on the fastest InterCity service and costs around 40 lei. From there, Sighișoara, the walled medieval town where Vlad the Impaler was actually born, makes a worthwhile detour, its citadel one of the few inhabited medieval fortresses left in Europe. Bran Castle is the more famous stop but the more overrated one; buy the 90 lei adult ticket online ahead of a summer weekend to skip the line, and budget two to three hours, but go in expecting a genuinely interesting Habsburg-era royal residence rather than anything connected to the historical Dracula, who never lived there.

Day 3: Brașov and Râșnov

Brașov’s Black Church earns its reputation, its interior scarred and darkened from a 1689 fire that gives the building its name. Hike or take the cable car up Mount Tâmpa for the postcard view over the old town’s red roofs. In the afternoon, Râșnov Citadel, a short drive out, is less crowded than Bran and arguably has better ramparts to walk. My take: if you only have time for one hilltop fortress this trip, make it Râșnov over Bran, since the crowds are thinner and the views are just as good.

Day 4: Sibiu

Sibiu’s old town, with its stacked squares and rooftop “eyes” peering out of dormer windows, was European Capital of Culture in 2007 and still trades on that polish. Climb the Council Tower for the rooftop panorama, then wander the fortified churches ringing the center. This is a good day to slow down after two days of driving between towns.

Day 5: Sarmizegetusa Regia

The Dacian capital’s ruins sit in the Orăștie Mountains, part of the southern Carpathians, roughly twenty kilometers of winding mountain road out from the town of Orăștie itself, not the Apuseni range further northwest as some guides mistakenly claim. The site rewards the drive: six ancient sanctuaries and the remains of the fortress that held off Roman legions for years before finally falling. It is remote enough that you will likely have long stretches of the site to yourself, a rarity in a country with this much history packed into a small area.

Day 6: Timișoara and Departure

Timișoara sits far to the west, close to three hundred kilometers from Sarmizegetusa Regia, so treat this as a travel day with a half day of sightseeing on the other end rather than a leisurely stop. The city earned its “cultural capital” reputation honestly, its baroque squares and parks genuinely rival Vienna’s on a smaller scale, and it was where the 1989 revolution actually first ignited before spreading to Bucharest. Timișoara’s international airport has direct connections to several European hubs if your route allows flying out from here instead of doubling back.

A few practical notes for the whole trip: trains and buses connect these towns reliably and cheaply, and renting a car makes the Sarmizegetusa detour and the Timișoara leg far easier than relying on public transport alone. Keep small lei notes on hand for taxis and rural stops where card machines are unreliable, and confirm castle and citadel hours in advance since they shift seasonally and some sites close early in the afternoon.