The great plain between the Carpathians and the Danube — where Bucharest pulses and the monasteries of the foothills keep a quieter time.
Communist megastructures beside Art Nouveau villas beside 18th-century churches — Bucharest is a city that never had time to edit itself. The result is chaotic, occasionally beautiful, never boring. The old Lipscani quarter has been reclaimed by restaurants and galleries; the rest of the city still belongs to its residents.
Built by Ceaușescu in the 1970s as a military route across the Făgăraș range, the Transfăgărășan is now Romania's most dramatic drive. It crests at 2,034 metres, passes Bâlea glacial lake, and descends through hairpin bends into Transylvania. Open only in summer; snow covers it for most of the year.
Along the arc of the Carpathian foothills, a string of Orthodox monasteries — Curtea de Argeș, Cozia, Horezu (UNESCO) — mark the spiritual landscape of medieval Wallachia. Horezu is the centre of a living pottery tradition; its blue-and-white ceramics are still made by hand in the surrounding villages.