Romania is a country clouded by negative stereotypes. The “Western” opinion of this region is less than favourable, and I was slightly pessimistic about what to expect when travelling here. However, after spending just 8 days in this marvellous country, I can tell you that it is so far from the truth. Romania is a beautiful and diverse country filled with picturesque natural beauty and remarkable people. It is one of the most accessible countries in Europe to visit from the UK (based on consistently low flight prices), and I could not recommend a visit highly enough! Read on to explore my journey backpacking through Romania.
Sections of this article:
- Arrival in Bucharest
- What to see in Bucharest
- Getting around Bucharest
- Taking the train from Bucharest to Sinaia
- What to do in Sinaia
- Taking the train from Sinaia to Brasov
- Arrival in Brasov
- What to do in Brasov
- Day trip to Bran Castle from Brasov
- Train from Brasov to Iasi
- What to do in Iasi
- Taking the bus from Iasi to Chisinau
- Where to buy a Romania flag patch
Arrival in Bucharest:
We arrived in Bucharest on a flight from London Stansted, which cost just £28.26pp!
From the airport, we decided to take an Uber to our hotel (yes, I know, a bit of a copout!) because the price of Uber was quite reasonable in Romania, and it was already late at night (costing around £12 for the two of us).
We stayed at the Bread&Breakfast Hostel in a twin room with a shared bathroom. The staff were very friendly, and the location was great. The hostel costs £14.56pp per night for a twin bedroom with a shared bathroom.
What to see in Bucharest:
. Palace of the Parliament – Fun fact: “House of the People” is the largest parliament building in the world, with over 1,000 rooms, and using over 1 million cubic metres of marble!!
. The Patriarchal Cathedral (Catedrala Patriarhală) and Palace of the Patriarchate (Palatul Patriarhiei)
. Bucharest Old Town
. “Saint Anthony” Church – (Biserica “Sfântul Anton”)
. Stavropoleos Monastery
. Museum of Communism
. The New “Saint George” Church – (Biserica “Sfântul Gheorghe Nou”)
. If you’re really keen on trying to get a pretty picture, then maybe visit “The Umbrella’s Street” – the street had a lot of construction and wasn’t very nice – it just shows how deceptive pictures can be!
Getting around Bucharest:
Bucharest is a very accessible city for pedestrians, and we enjoyed walking practically everywhere! However, there are also extensive bus and metro networks across the city – alongside taxi services such as Uber.
Taking the train from Bucharest to Sinaia:
We purchased all our Romanian train tickets from the CFR Calatori website. The website worked completely fine, and we received our purchase confirmations and tickets by email with QR codes, which were scanned on board the trains.
Our train to Sinaia cost £8.98pp (52.5 RON) (which did seem quite steep…), and the journey lasted around an hour and a half. On all our trains in Romania, we had designated seats, which made boarding and the journey very comfortable and easy.
Before departing from Bucharest, the train is filled with “interesting” characters who try and beg from the travellers, but they all disembark before the train starts moving, and they did not cause us any grief!
What to do in Sinaia:
. Obviously, the main thing to do in Sinaia is to see Peleș Castle (Castelul Peleș)! Unfortunately for us, there were renovations ongoing, which slightly diminished the awe factor – but the castle is truly stunning.
. Castelul Pelișor – located just next to Peleș Castle, is also definitely worth a visit
. Sinaia Monastery
. Sinaia Casino – for the impressive building rather than the gambling aspect!
. We unfortunately didn’t have time, but I’ve also heard the gondola is worth taking to get some lovely views of the surrounding Bucegi Mountains and to look over the town.
We spent a day in Sinaia while travelling between Bucharest and Brasov. We found the town to be very beautiful but slightly artificial. The prices of everything seemed quite extortionate relative to the Romanian economy, and it felt like the entire town was situated in a resort in Switzerland or Austria with the style of buildings and cleanliness. That said, we did find a lovely Indian restaurant called “Ramayana”, which was delicious and pretty reasonably priced. Sinaia is not incredibly budget-friendly, so we were quite glad to not be spending the night there and forced to spend even more on meals and other costs!
Peles Castle is around a 30-minute walk from town – taking you along a scenic pathway through the woodlands. I recommend using Google Maps to download a map of Sinaia before you visit (in case you are without mobile data), as the streets can be quite confusing due to the hillsides.
Taking the train from Sinaia to Brasov:
Again, we used CFR Calatori to purchase our train tickets and received reserved seats. The price of our tickets was just £1.97pp (11.5 RON), which I guess made up for the more expensive tickets from Bucharest to Sinaia. There are two classes of trains in Romania – these are the IR trains and the R trains. Now, I’m not sure if I am being a wally, but I literally noticed no difference at all in the quality of the trains and would recommend just booking whatever is cheapest! The journey took just over 1 hour (so it’s also not really worth any extra expense)!
Arrival in Brasov:
Our train got into Brasov at around 20:15, and we ventured across the street to a supermarket to stock up on water and snacks before hopping in an Uber to our hostel (£2.35). We stayed at the “Pension Flamingo” Hotel, which cost us £14.55pp per night for a twin bedroom with a private bathroom. The hotel was again very comfortable and in a decent location, would recommend it.
What to do in Brasov:
. Brasov Historical Centre
. Hike up through the woodlands to Turnul Negru and Turnul Alb – provides lovely panoramic views of the city
. Black Church (Biserica Neagra)
. The First Romanian school – in case you were interested, Brasov is home to the first school to teach the Romanian language (located inside the grounds of St. Nicholas Church)
. We found the area around Catherine’s Gate slightly underwhelming as it was tarnished with graffiti and just wasn’t as impressive as we had imagined
. Fun fact: Brasov is also home to the fourth narrowest street in Europe – called Strada Sforii, meaning “Rope Street”! (The top three being Spreuerhofstraße, Germany; Parliament Street, England; and Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, Sweden).
Brasov was fantastic! Honestly, for some reason, I had this pre-conception that it would be a dodgier place, and I have no idea why! Brasov was beautiful; its people were so friendly and welcoming, and we had a wonderful time wandering its historic streets. One of the only destinations served by Brasov Airport is London Luton (LTN), so what’s your excuse!! Hop on a plane to Brasov, Romania, the next time you have a free weekend!
Day trip to Bran Castle from Brasov:
We took a bus to the town of Bran from the Brasov bus terminal (see map below). We walked into the bus station and instantly found a bus with the word Bran in the window and paid the driver directly. The buses left every hour, on the hour, and cost 13 Lei each way (£2.22). The journey lasted 45 minutes.
We spent a while wandering around the market of Bran and grabbing lunch before venturing up to the infamous Dracula’s Castle. Bran Castle was the inspiration for the vampire legend of Count Dracula and has become one of Romania’s top tourist attractions. This was very evident! The place was heaving, and we had a pretty lengthy queue to enter the castle – which is designed as a one-way system. The entrance fee is 70 Lei for adults (£11.98) or 50 Lei for students (£8.56). The castle is definitely worth a visit, and the history of the building and its residents was fascinating to discover.
After seeing the castle, we decided to walk beyond its walls to explore the rest of the town. We walked down to “Heart Queen Mary”, “Biserica Bran”, and Transfiguration Church, all of which were closed. The area seemed slightly in disrepair compared to the rest of the town and looked like it needed some TLC. It was a shame to see such a contrast over a distance of just several hundred metres!
We caught the bus back to Brasov from outside the exit of the castle’s grounds – where a line of people had formed. We didn’t really know when the bus was going to rock up, but after around 20 minutes or so it came flying around the corner! We paid the driver the same price as the outward journey.
Train from Brasov to Iasi:
The following day, we took the train from Brasov to Iasi. For some reason, only first-class seats were available for our journey (we must’ve booked too late online). This made some sense as the train only runs once daily! Our tickets cost us 175 Lei pp (£29.95), and the journey took 7 hours and 52 minutes. The train is definitely quite an inefficient way to get between these two places as it winds endlessly through the valleys and villages of rural Romania. However, I am a lover of public transport and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the beautiful countryside. We had a brief incident with a family of gipsies who temporarily commandeered our carriage between the stations of Bacau and Roman before they were kicked off the train by the conductors! Other than this brief interruption, the journey was very peaceful and comfortable!
What to do in Iasi:
. Palace of Culture
. Metropolitan Cathedral
. Monastery of Sfintii Trei lerarhi
. Golia Monastery
. Cetatuia Monastery
Iasi is renowned for having some of the most ornate and impressive churches in Romania, and some of the most remarkable I have ever seen. They are quite literally everywhere, and you will never be short during your time in Iasi!
We spent one day in Iasi and stayed at Casa Marguta hostel overnight – which cost £15.40pp for a twin bedroom with a private bathroom. The following evening, we took the bus from Iasi to Chisinau.
Taking the bus from Iasi to Chisinau:
We purchased tickets for the bus online using the InfoBus website. We were sent confirmation and QR Code emails at the time of purchase, and the journey cost us 15 euros pp. The website is very efficient and shows the various services they run throughout the day. InfoBus acts as a travel company selling tickets on behalf of the companies that run the route (similar to Trainline in the UK) – our actual bus company was called “Sarvalteh Auto”. The bus terminal in Iasi is basically opposite the train station and is very easy to find. We arrived around 30-40 minutes early, and our minibus was already there waiting with “Chisinau” clearly displayed in the window in both Latin and Cyrillic. The driver was very friendly and spoke perfect English and Russian.
The journey was scheduled to take around 2 hours 45 minutes but ended up taking closer to 4 hours due to congestion around the border region. The border crossing was extremely straightforward; all the passengers on the bus had their passports collected and returned to them stamped after about 5-10 minutes. You do not even need to disembark! This is the same for both the Romanian and Moldovan checkpoints.
Click here to read about my continued adventure through Moldova and Transnistria!
Where to buy a Romania flag patch:
I bought my Romania flag patch in a souvenir shop in Bucharest. These souvenir shops were quite pricey and I believe I paid around £4 for this patch (some shops were quoting me at least £6)! The average price for a flag patch in my experience is around £3. I chose one with the national coat of arms because they didn’t have a standard flag option in the shops that I visited and when it gets to a certain point, I always think it is better to buy what is in front of you than risk not getting one at all!
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