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Looking for a honeymoon destination that’s full of history and outdoor adventures with a dash of city life? Even better if it’s not on the traditional list of top ten romantic destinations, right? If you’re in search of something unique for your honeymoon, consider adventuring around the country of Romania. It’s a beautiful country with a variety of landscapes ranging from mountains, forests, castles – even ski resorts and beaches! This Romania travel guide will give you a peek into what you have to look forward to:
Bucharest: the Capital City
Bucharest is this interesting blend of Orthodox churches, beautiful Belle Arts government buildings + boxy communist-era buildings. Plus a dash of post-dictatorship casinos + nightclubs. The unique combination means that as you walk around the city + turned a corner, you never really know what you are going to get.
Explore architecture unique to Romania at the beautiful palace called Mogosoaia, one of the only surviving buildings of its kind. It’s considered to be Romanian Renaissance architecture (also known as Brancovenesc), which is a fascinating blend of Ottoman + Italian influences. The almost-pink brick structures were surrounded by romantic rose gardens + the palace grounds were nestled next to a small lake.
Spend the afternoon tasting Romanian wines and dally around the table enjoying traditional Romanian cuisines such as polenta with sausage and cabbage rolls. Romanians take their time with meals, but what’s the hurry on a honeymoon! Later, learn about the history of Romania at the Village Museum, which is an amazing collection of houses from various time periods + regions all across the country. It gave you a glimpse of what daily life was like for people from all walks of life. If you’re lucky, you might even stumble upon a folk dance festival, as I did!
Transylvania: the Classic Countryside
Transylvania is a region of Romania, about 2 hours drive from the capital city of Bucharest. The countryside is absolutely beautiful; however, on the windy country roads outside of Bucharest, visiting these 3 famous sites takes a whole day of driving. Bran Castle is the legendary Dracula’s castle. The story of Dracula was based on a notoriously bloodthirsty Romanian ruler named Vlad the Impaler. He didn’t actually live in this particular castle, but the location happens to perfectly match the description of the castle in the book of Dracula, even though the author had never actually been to Transylvania. For the maximum creepiness factor, visit on a moody, rainy day or around Halloween, when thousands come to visit the castle and camp in the surrounding areas.
For orthodox history and architecture, visit Sinaia Monastery. The tiny museum on the Monastery’s property houses a Bible, the first book translated into Romanian. If you’re a linguaphile like me, this is a must see. I loved the architecture of this church + the small surrounding grounds.
The third stop on your tour of Transylvania is definitely the most romantic: Peles castle. It was built by the first king of Romania in 1873. It is perfectly fairytale-like, like a scene from Beauty + the Beast. Inside, I took a tour of the first floor where the king had elaborate receiving rooms for diplomats + royals from other countries. He also had a large collection of books (ten thousand of them!) + a library with a secret door. Most of the books are now in the Bucharest National Library, but even the small collection left in the castle’s library still reinforced the magical Beauty + the Beast vibe.
Sinaia: the Mountain Ski Town
A few hours by bus from Bucharest sits a little town called Sinaia. It’s a mountain resort town near Bucegi Natural Park + it was refreshingly cool after the heat of the city. It’s popular in the winter for skiing, and a perfect camping spot in the summer. The town is dotted with small gardens + chicken coops, amidst charming mountain homes. Woven in between were these big, characterless apartment buildings – remnants of the communist era.
Make sure to spend a day at Bucegi Natural Park. You can take a gondola up to the peak, or a gradual hike that gains about 1000 feet of elevation. There is only one gondola in each direction at any given time, so on a busy day, be prepared for a wait to actually get on to one. It is quite a steep drop off the back side of the mountain (as opposed to hiking the much more sloping front side) so the gondola descent is dramatic. At the summit, there were ruins of a prehistoric temple, with rock carvings + stone arrangements along with stunning, naturally occurring rock formations.
With all the variety that the country has to offer, Romania makes a perfect honeymoon destination – that you can shape however you like. It holds a wonderful balance of the outdoors, history and culture: all the ingredients to a romantic getaway.
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