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Romania in records
Surprising things about a country that keeps surprising — from mud volcanoes to a 2,000-year-old stone calendar.
The country's smallest town
Băile Tușnad, with about 1,600 inhabitants, is Romania's smallest town — a spa resort tucked in the Olt gorge, below the country's only volcanic lake.
Discover →The world's only 'merry' cemetery
At Săpânța, in Maramureș, the blue-painted crosses carry witty rhyming epitaphs about the lives of those buried — a celebration of life, not of death.
Discover →Voroneț blue
The intense blue of Voroneț's 'Last Judgement' fresco has survived 500 years of rain, and the pigment's exact recipe has never been reproduced.
Discover →'The best road in the world'
The Transfăgărășan, climbing above 2,000 m through the Făgăraș ridges, was called 'the best driving road in the world' by Top Gear.
Discover →Volcanoes… that erupt mud
The Mud Volcanoes in Buzău county are small cold cones oozing mud pushed up by deep gases — an almost vegetation-free, lunar landscape in the middle of Wallachia.
Discover →A glacier thousands of years old
Scărișoara Cave in the Apuseni holds one of Europe's largest underground glaciers — a block of ice formed over more than 3,000 years.
The Dacian capital and its stone 'calendar'
Sarmizegetusa Regia, the capital of Dacia, hides in the mountains circular stone-and-wood sanctuaries used 2,000 years ago for astronomical observations.
Discover →The last forestry steam train
The Vaser Valley steam train in Maramureș is Europe's last forestry steam railway that still hauls timber — not just tourists.
Discover →Electric streets before the great capitals
In 1884, Timișoara became the first city in continental Europe with electric street lighting — 731 lamps lit before Vienna or Paris.
Discover →A salt mine like an underground cathedral
Salina Turda, with its vast galleries, Ferris wheel and underground lake, regularly features among the world's most spectacular underground places.
Discover →The oldest national park
Retezat, declared a national park in 1935, is the country's oldest and holds over 80 glacial lakes, including Bucura, the largest in Romania.
Discover →An ultra-modern royal castle… in 1883
Peleș Castle in Sinaia was among the first castles in Europe with its own electricity, central heating, a lift and central vacuuming — 21st-century luxury in the middle of the 19th.
Discover →The delta that grows every year
The Danube Delta, Europe's best-preserved, advances a few metres into the sea each year and shelters over 300 bird species and the country's oldest oaks, at Letea.
Discover →The Sphinx at 2,200 metres
On the Bucegi plateau, wind and frost carved the Sphinx and the Babele from rock — natural formations above 2,200 m, wrapped in countless legends.
Discover →