I am planning a trip to Romania in 10 days. Can anyone tell me what is great to visit and / or do in this country? I will be there for 10 days and will have a car. One thing - I only speak English, will this be a problem? I like both city and country settings.

WE had a car and visited the Bucovina area (the monasteries are beautiful as is the ocuntryside), the Maramures (like Europe must have been 70 years ago) and Translyvania (Sibiu, Brasov and the Bran area). Didn't do anything Dracula related because we feel that is all a bunch of tourist hype. We didn't visist Bucharest because from our research it didn't sound very appealing. Driving is probably slower than you would anticipate, so plan accordingly. Check the archives on this site for ore info on Romania.

I visited Romania in September last year and it was quite rainy, damp and chilly. We hired a guid to take us driving around the country for approx 40$us per day. Visited the Transylvania area with Sighisoara, Sibiu and Brasov(being the main gateway to this enchanted land) Romania is very impressive as it seems you can be a millionaire there for the duration of your stay as your money goes far. Dracula castle is a great visit as well as Bucharest -although not much to see besides the Ceacescu's formere Palace --2nd largest in the world or the largest-cannot remember. Great place for hiking and the outdoorsy type. Not musc to do though so just relax. Take a train rain from bucharest to Brasov - as one stop is of particular natural beauty --cannot remember -- sorry--you will have an ok time with your English but brush up on the Latin languages--Remember these people are just recently opening to the Western world. Try Italian classes before you go--very similar to Romanian.

Have a blast
Flycrab
Air Canada Employee
Montreal, Canada

We liked Sighisoara. Not only was Vlad Tepes (Dracula) born there but also the father of space travel (Herman Obert). Draculays birth home is now a restaurant and we had a very nice dinner there.
The "Peoples Palace" in Bucharest is the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and has very rich furnishings. They can not afford to keep up the grounds and it uses more electricity in four hours then the entire rest of the city uses in eight hours. There is a outdoor museum that has many buildings from medieval times that you can walk around and visit. Visit Bran castle in the Carpathian Mountains just south of Brasov. We enjoyed that quite a bit. We stayed for 4 nights in Brasov and used that as our base. The farmers market in Brasov is quite interesting to visit. The roads are not to bad except in certain areas. Most are just 2 lane and the going is somewhat slow. Watch out for the police and do not look them in the eyes as you are driving as they will then stop you and threaten you with jail unless you pay them a "fine". Also watch out for horse drawn carts while driving. Do not drive at night unless you absolutely have to.

Don't underestimate Bucharest. The National Museum contains some ofthe most stunning gold artefacts I've seen anywhere in the world. The Village Museum, an open-air museum of village buildings from all over Romania, is remarkable.

And you can now get trips round what most of us call Ceausescu's Palace. Hardly great art. But if you're in the country, you have to see it. Actually the whole Ceausescu-era complex around his palace is extraordinary. And I think it's aged well, to look at anyway (most of the buildings are pretty ramshackle inside). Just beware of the feral dogs in that part of town