Pushing through a damp, flower-decked meadow on the hilltop, we reach the edge of a narrow valley filled with giant bog rhubarb. Before he plunges down into it Nelu, the hunter, turns to me with a grin: “In this vegetation, the bears can just pop up – right in front of you!”

I am wishing that I had changed out of my cycling gear. These shoes have no grip and the shorts are much too tight for escape manoeuvres.

How did this happen, I ask myself, as I follow Nelu into the tall, spiky vegetation. Only an hour ago I was on a cycle tour in the Romanian mountains – now, fired up with plum brandy, I’m chasing bears through a landscape that could only be dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm: steep-sided hills covered in flowers, deep gorges and dark brooding forests.

I glance down at my feet and there, in a patch of dried mud, is a wolf’s footprint. Nelu and my cycling guide, Mircea Crisbasanu, come over and confirm it. Yes, a wolf has passed this way – maybe last night. Don’t worry, they assure me, they only attack in winter when they’re hungry.

To our left there is the edge of the forest: dark and silent. To the right a hidden stream is roaring. There is a heightened quality to the atmosphere and every detail is perfectly chiselled by the twilight. How good can plum brandy be? Is this some alcohol-induced hallucination?

The cool mountain air of the Carpathians, and the damp scratches of the prickly plants around my bare legs seem real enough. Mircea and Nelu plunge into the bog rhubarb, heading deeper and deeper into the wilds, oblivious to the fading light, the rising moon and the possible effects of Lycra on local predators – lycranthropy?

I go after them, trying very hard to keep up. We want to spot a bear. Nelu has promised. I think his promises are serious – like his brandy.

Romania. Before I arrived the name conjured up conflicting images. On one side there was a literary element: William Blacker’s Along the Enchanted Way and Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Between the Woods and the Water – gorgeous, evocative, and – I calculated – highly romanticised. Then there was the other, less attractive, side of the equation provided by TV programmes and newspapers: dilapidated orphanages, Ceausescu’s dead face, Roma people being packed into French coaches, and some nasty Stalinist architecture. Given the apparent incompatibility of these two, I should have predicted that it was going to be unpredictable, but somehow I didn’t.

The plan was to cycle through an area of mountains that sees few visitors, Romanian or foreign.

“It’s like an elbow in the Carpathian chain,” Mircea explains as we drive from Bucharest’s Baneasa airport (brutal 1950s architecture, exactly as expected). “You’ll see. It’s only a day’s drive from Bucharest but very wild and remote. Are you okay with sleeping in haystacks if we have to?”

Mircea is a young Romanian who learned to love cycling while studying engineering in Holland. He came home to an economic depression and, rather than engaging in civil works, started a cycle-touring company instead. He is, I am to discover, a great travelling companion, if a little overenthusiastic when it comes to searching for bears at twilight in giant rhubarb forests. We drop the car in the small town of Berca at the foot of the hills and, next morning, load up our bikes and set out.

Sour cherries on the treeWe roll along quiet roads admiring the small houses, each with a garden filled with sour cherry trees and vines. Outside every house is a bench where the inhabitants can sit and watch the world go by. The majority are elderly, many of the young people having abandoned bucolic bliss for the delights of the city.

Greetings are important: “I kiss your hand!” is my favourite, so I learn it and practise, calling “saru’mana!” as we pass. It is, I shortly discover, only intended for older women, so I revert to “sa traiti“, “May you live long”, which turns out to be only for older men.

Smiles are rare, and not just because of my faulty grasp of Romanian. There is wariness, if not bemusement. Cycling for pleasure is something of a novelty in these parts. Or perhaps it is because the region has been trampled by invaders so often that another incoming wave of people in helmets – this time plastic ones – is given a cautious welcome.

“The place we’re heading for is said to be the ancient kingdom of Colchis,” Mircea tells me. “That’s where Jason and the Argonauts came to claim the golden fleece, and where there is a fountain of everlasting youth.”

Is he serious? I’m not sure. The destination of the mythical Argonauts has usually been placed on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, but I have no objection to it being relocated. It is always fascinating to see how people drag useful myths towards their own landscape, wreathing their hills and valleys with mystery, magic and pilgrim potential. Think Glastonbury and Joseph of Arimathea.

Mircea is grinning. “There’s a spring up in the mountains where we are going and they do say its waters rejuvenate you.”

For the moment, however, we are drawn away from thoughts of long life with a stop at a chapel where a funeral is taking place. I am ushered in and a lighted candle, its base wrapped in a traditional cotton handkerchief, is pressed into my hand. A nun has died and is lying in an open coffin while local people and other nuns sing laments in a simple and moving ceremony. Following the gestured instructions of an elderly nun, I push the candle into the urn next to the body and take the handkerchief away with me.

Outside again, we find a well by the road and fill our water bottles. Whatever claims are made for the properties of some springs and wells in the region, I’m starting to realise that the water is delicious. It is possible to buy water in plastic bottles, but that would be perverse when there is so much good tasty stuff around for free. Locals simply hang a cup by a well or spring to show that it’s drinkable. Occasionally there is a sign. “Dear traveller,” reads one, “drink happily this water for it is good and clean and wets a thirsty mouth.”

We push on, pedalling hard up rough country roads, stopping for rests in deep, flower-decked meadows. There is little or no mechanisation in these parts: the men carry long-handled scythes or hay forks, tools that they manage with skill even when breakfast is just a few glugs of plum brandy. In the late afternoon we cross a ridge and start to descend towards the village of Colti, where we will spend the night.

In the road we are greeted by teenagers Alexandria and Andrea, who turn out to be the daughters of our hosts, Diana and Gigel. They live in a delightful smallholding with one pig, one cow, two dogs and a flock of hens. Like most people in these parts, they are almost self-sufficient and we are soon tucking into the fruits of their labours: mici, a traditional minced-meat sausage eaten with the staple mamaliga (polenta), homemade cheeses and ciorba (a vegetable soup), all washed down with the inevitable plum brandy, tuica. As darkness falls, Gigel takes us to our sleeping quarters: the hayrick.

Mircea on the hayrick bed in ColtiI do have a few reservations about this plan. I’m expecting to have tiny burrowing insects tickling me to death all night long. There’ll be no escape either, since the darkness below will be full of marauding bears, dogs and wolves. Mircea, however, is confident that we will be comfortable. He rigs up a plastic sheet to hold back the dew, and we unfurl our sleeping bags and settle down. Very quickly I realise how wrong I was: it is like sleeping on a feather bed as tall as a house. I wake once and admire the stars. Dawn comes wrapped in mysterious scarves of mist winding around the walnut trees. We head for the cottage and breakfast – all homegrown and homemade – of eggs, cheeses, milk, bread and a tot of plum brandy.

The day is for hiking: exploring the forests and upper valleys of the area where there are cave churches, remnants of an eremitic society that came here to hide from Mongol and Ottoman invaders. We stop frequently because neither of us can bear to pass a patch of wild strawberries or a laden mulberry tree. One chapel is accessed only by a ladder up a rock face, others are tucked inside natural niches or at the foot of huge crags.

Eventually we get to the fountain of eternal youth, as Mircea has billed it, only to discover that a farmer has capped it with a concrete lid. It’s so heavy that I put on 10 years in shifting it in order to get a few sips of the sulphurous brew below. Legend has it that King Luanei of Colchis was the only person allowed to drink this divine nectar.

There are other stories too, told to us by 13-year-old Andrea: caves that transport you to faraway places, and grottoes where candles cannot be lit.

“They are not stories,” she insists with all the certainty of youth. “They are true.”

The area is certainly mysterious, filled with strange phenomena such as volcanoes of cold bubbling mud and seams of ancient amber.

Next day is going to be a big biking marathon so we hit the hay early. By eight next morning we are already pedalling down the valley, greeting peasants driving to their fields in horse-drawn carts, a form of transport that outnumbers cars here.

We stop to browse on the sour cherry trees, a fruit so delicious I cannot believe I’ve lived so long without it. There is an exciting crossing of a swaying rope bridge, then a few miles on a main road. Mircea apologises profusely for the traffic: it’s almost as bad as a Northumbrian B-road on Christmas Day.

We turn on to a rough mountain track and climb steadily through dark pine forests. As we approach the pass, magnificent views open out: deep forested valleys, exposed ridges and occasional hamlets. Unfortunately, at one of these we are misdirected and end our climb with a soul-destroying push up a rutted footpath.

On the far side things improve. There is a wooden shrine containing a wooden jug of cool water for travellers, the cows have scarlet pom-poms tucked behind their ears, and the puddles are filled with happy honking frogs. We cycle down in late afternoon sun, reaching the small town of Lopatari as the sun sets.

“We could reach the pension in about an hour from here,” says Mircea, “but there’s a hunter lives nearby … ”

A volcaono of cold mudNelu turns out to be something of a character, as are all his family. His father, a shepherd, lives a totally self-sufficient life, refusing to go into town. Nelu owns a lorry, and that brings in some money, but otherwise he follows his father’s lead, stocking his larder with deer and wild boar to go with bottled preserves and dried foods. We settle down to a feast: wild boar with homegrown polenta, wild mushrooms with pickles, deer stew with cabbage and bread, cheeses and cake, washed down with a decent homemade rosé and plum brandy.

Nelu tells stories of hunting: the lynx who is so fast and elusive, the wolves that come in winter, the bear with cubs who chased him up a tree, tearing at his back – it was his rucksack that saved his life that day. When we are finished and dusk is falling, he pushes back his chair and says, “Come on. We’ll try and find a bear.”

Back in the bog rhubarb, we have started finding bear tracks. “Here’s a mother with a cub,” says Nelu, pointing to some marks. “They are recent, but heading up the hill so we must have missed them.”

We walk quickly and quietly back up to the meadow and emerge on a ledge where flames are licking from among the flowers. It’s a set of natural gas fumaroles, eternally sending spouts of yellow skywards. We give up on the bears and sit next to the fire, enjoying the warmth and the weird magic of the place. According to Nelu, there are no stories or legends attached to the gas jets. “Don’t you have them in your country?” he asks. In this forgotten corner, where there are volcanoes of cold mud, caverns that spirit people away to faraway lands, and fountains of youth, eternal flames are nothing out of the ordinary.

I was at Heathrow – having not even embarked yet on my six-day riding holiday in Transylvania – when my husband rang. Did I know it was the 100th anniversary of the death of Bram Stoker (creator of Dracula)? I said I wondered whether Dracula might be responsible for the six-day weather forecast: thunder and lightning, rain, snow, rain, thunder and lightning, and – only on the last day – sun.

It was supposed to be a spring trip. At least I had packed my waterproof trousers. I was also carrying a small library of Romanian literature – weighing on my heart as well as in my case: memoirs by exiles Dan Antal and Norman Manea; travel books by Patrick Leigh Fermor and William Blacker; and Georgina Harding’s novel The Painter of Silence. Each testifies to a country of exceptional beauty but with such a burden of history that it could not be expected to travel lightly into its future – whatever its tourists might do.

We, a group of four riders, were to be the guests of Count Tibor Kalnoky and his wife Anna in Miklósvár, and were met at Bucharest airport by Josef, an old retainer from the household. On the four-hour drive to Miklósvár, Josef kept up a commentary, in patchy English, on snow-capped mountains, roadside cemeteries, deserted 14th-century Saxon churches, a gaggle of Gypsies and bankrupt businesses.

He kept repeating: “After the revelation…” It was an appropriate slip, for his message was that the 1989 revolution that saw off Nicolae Ceausescu had not been revelatory enough. He was pessimistic about the EU and today’s politicians: “No one liked the communists but at least people had jobs.”

He had the merriest smile, especially when delivering grim prophecies about his country, and he had brought cakes and an emergency flask of black coffee to keep spirits high.

Miklósvár is in Szekler country, which was once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and became Romanian during the first world war. Hungarian is still the region’s language of choice. Our first overnight stop was to be at the Kalnokys’ sensitively restored guesthouse – a place of such charm that, as soon as I stepped inside, I felt as though a fairy tale had overtaken the harsher, earlier narrative. It was exactly how a gingerbread house should look from within. Every detail was eager to please: white cotton cushion covers, along whose edges scarlet pimpernels had been hand stitched, lamps with dainty skirts, an ancient cuckoo clock.

Count Kalnokys’s guesthouse. Photograph: Catherine Karnow/CorbisAnd I was entranced by the sight, only a few strides outside the guesthouse, of storks in slapdash nests at the top of telegraph poles. Josef had passed on another of his revelations about the storks: every year, he insisted, they leave Romania on the same date, 20 August.

We had our own itinerary – starting with a rendezvous with the Kalnokys. In the guesthouse parlour, they welcomed us – in a Romanian ritual – with a crystal decanter of brandy and a reception committee of tiny glasses. The count introduced himself, with a touch of irony, as an “international man of culture” and made congenial small talk.

But it was Anna – tiny, delightful, reserved, and with a scholarly approach to her horses – who was mistress of ceremonies. We riders sat, as if at a seminar, as she cross-questioned us about our riding and, with a distant look in her eye, made her matches. Getting the pairing right, she told me later, is the most important thing in any riding business, and she has learned the hard way.

The following day, we were driven to Valea Crisului, the Kalnokys’ once-glorious now-crumbling stables, where I was presented with Rua, whose name, translated, means dew and who had visibly been feeding off something more substantial. She is a Huzul (a historic local breed from the Carpathian mountains) crossed with a Lipizzaner, and at the end of every day’s riding (between three and five hours) I would be grateful for her comfortable contours. The countess has more challenging mounts for those wanting a challenge – notably Chaos, one of her Arabs, who has to be ridden with verve to make sure he does not live up to his name.

This was a trail ride – but “trail” does not describe its exhilarating pace (although speed is always dictated by the weakest rider in the group). The riding in Romania is sensational, with uninterrupted miles of pasture and woodland. No gates, no fences.

On the first day, we headed north up to a ridge with views across the high Carpathian range. The countryside has a landscaped look, as if a Romanian Capability Brown had been at work: meadows with free-standing oaks, beeches and hornbeams and, occasionally, a tree clotted with mistletoe. Spring had not yet arrived – the beech woods were bare. But even this weirdly indeterminate season was beautiful, with its silver birches and golden leaves. And when we dismounted for the simple daily picnic, we would come across wild flowers – wood anemones, hellebores, dog’s-tooth violets – making themselves visible with shy persistence.

Map showing places on Kate’s tripThe weather was poor but better than advertised. If I were to return, I would go for September or October (summer can be roastingly hot). Yet it is a measure of how stunning Transylvania is that even under grey skies it captivates. The sense of being in a fairytale persists beyond the guesthouse door and into the landscape itself.

There are bears in the woods. We saw their paw prints in the mud (impossible not to think of Michael Rosen’s children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt). Our guide, Boti, fetchingly dressed in Hungarian woollen knickerbockers and fur-trimmed hat, was ready with bear necessities and updates: “Hunters shot at three bears yesterday and missed – the bears will be asleep in the forest.”

We did better with our sleeping quarters. The accommodation has been chosen by the countess for variety, ranging from comfortable B&Bs to grander accommodation. Baile Malnas (“raspberry baths”) was the first village we visited. I’ve mentioned Romania’s penchant for brandy but Transylvania is known for its mineral water, and Baile Malnas was a thriving spa at the end of the 19th century.

I was struck by the irony that this village, dedicated to health, is now conspicuously ailing. Its elegant wooden buildings are rickety and many are occupied by travellers. Its waters taste mighty strange. “This one is like blood,” Boti warned enthusiastically (the Dracula effect?). Another seemed sulphurous. But a third was marketably delicious. Boti reminisced about water he and his friends were urged to drink as boys to boost virility (a sort of Viagra Falls?). I preferred to stick to the local lemon balm tea.

Our host in Baile Malnas was a hunter and our dinner was boar stew (the Romanian diet is consistently hearty). He was also a beekeeper, craftily stowing his bees in a caravan so he could transport them whenever acacias came into bloom.

On the morning of the second day, rain was falling steadily on the row of cabbages outside my bedroom window, and a local volcano had gathered so much black cloud it looked as though it was smoking by other means. But the downpour had eased by mid-morning as we climbed in a north-westerly direction towards the deep forests of the Hatod region, where six villages share the same woods. These villages have delectable names. Who could resist Batanii Mici, translated as Little Bacon, as an address?

“How do you like my village?” asked Boti (a local pastor’s son). We liked Little Bacon very much indeed. Many of its houses are blue – the shade depending upon social status: dark blue for peasants, sky-blue for aristocrats. The roofs have decorative diamond-shaped tiles. The 1798 church has sky-blue pews and the stream outside runs so fast it looks like speeded-up film.

In the centre of the village, a bronze man sits on a bench, commemorating its most famous resident, the Hungarian children’s storyteller Benedek Elek (1859-1929), Transylvania’s answer to Hans Christian Andersen. We visited Elek’s beautiful house – a melancholy fairytale in itself, dedicated to his wife and the love of his life, Maria. Her name is still above the door. Elek was a romantic and a wit. Boti translated a teasing hand-written sign (one of several) explaining that he had buried all the books ever panned by critics in his garden. A joke that gives one pause for thought. And we inspected the letter he wrote just before he died. His last words were: “Work is what matters.”

Working as a farmer in Transylvania is especially hard – the place seems still to exist in another century, with horse-drawn vehicles everywhere. In Little Bacon we visited a remarkable watermill patronised by Prince Charles, who, moved by the plight of Transylvanian villages, has been doing what he can to help. There is a historical royal connection too: Queen Victoria was a grandmother of Queen Marie of Romania (1914–1927).

We inspected the mill and watched the 80-year-old mother of the millers at her loom. She proudly showed us a framed snap of herself with Prince Charles and offered round homemade biscuits mysteriously known as friend’s ears. She told us she liked the fact that riders had “energy for life” – something she had too.

Traditional farming in Miklósvár. Photograph: Catherine Karnow/CorbisThe warmth of all the Romanians we met was disarming, and our hosts in Little Bacon were especially attentive, putting aside time to entertain us. Mr Antal kissed our hands and played us old Caruso recordings on an antique gramophone. Mrs Antal shared her hopes that Romania was about to turn a corner politically.

Our next stop was Kormos (or “sooty”) valley, where Ceausescu once had a hunting lodge. I had been nervous about spending a night chez Ceausescu, but it was to be a fascinating interlude. The place was deserted apart from us. It was as if we – a group of rain-drenched riders and a cook – were haunting it. Outside, the building looks starkly Soviet; inside, it was toastily warm (Romania does a fantastic line in ceramic stoves of great height – Ceausescu’s was decorated with naked women). The place was moss green with varnished pine and dried bulrushes everywhere.

This, I thought, is where the bear hunt ends. On the floor were bear skins with stuffed heads, bared teeth and detachable plastic tongues. The sense was that time itself had been taxidermied. The place is spookily well preserved – as if in expectation of Ceausescu’s return. On the mantelpieces are photos of the dictator with dead bears.

Boti joked: “Should we throw them on the fire?” It wasn’t much of a joke – he went on to explain his grandfather had been tortured during Ceausescu’s regime. Hard to explain why it was such a weirdly upbeat visit. Perhaps the tasteless objects contributed – especially the chair constructed out of antlers, a preposterous masterpiece. And the elation of registering that Ceausescu is gone for good.

Next day we rode to the Kalnokys’ decorous, dusky pink, neo-classical hunting lodge. And on the last day … the sun came out. Over breakfast, I told Boti that his country had got under my skin and I was not ready to leave.

“It is like life,” he replied, with comic gravity. “You like it, you get used to it and then it is over.”

I felt it was slightly too early in the morning to digest this, so I settled for a fried egg instead. And then began a day of extraordinary speed and beauty, in blazing sunshine – with a wonderful lunch in Prince Charles’s attractive farmhouse in Zalánpatak (he was not at home). It was an emerald rush of a ride, with no roads or villages, in which galloping seemed the natural pace: whenever the country opened up, the horses let themselves go.

And moments like these – are you listening Boti? – exist so absolutely in the present that you like them, you get used to them and, in your memory, they will never be over.

WINNING TIP: Romano-Dacian ruins, near Hateg

In the part of Romania that used to be called Dacia are the ruins of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. Take a bus from the town of Santamaria-Orlea, hop off when the locals tell you, and you will be enthralled by the size of the site: it has every building a Roman settlement should have. If that is not enough, a short walk down country lanes brings you to beautiful Unesco-listed Densus church, made from stones probably taken from a Roman mausoleum.
cimec.ro 
majones

Transylvania

Sibiu
Admire icons and Romanian impressionists in Sibiu’s Brukenthal Museum (brukenthalmuseum.ro) on Piata Mare (Big Square). Stroll to the nearby Liars’ Bridge, Romania’s oldest cast-iron bridge, said to collapse if you tell a lie when standing on it. Visit the 14th-century evangelical church, where the son of Vlad the Impaler was stabbed. Stay at the elegant Hotel Imparatul Romanilor.
imparatulromanilor.ro, doubles £45
busylizzie51

Biertan village, Transylvania. Photograph: AlamySaxon villages 
If you’re visiting Sighisoara and Sibiu, take a bus to some of the Saxon villages of Târnava Mare. Most towns preserve their history with names in Romanian, German and Hungarian. Settlements such as Biertan (also called Birthälm or Berethalom) and Richis (Reichersdorf, Riomfalva) boast extraordinary fortified churches, sleepy monasteries and a tangible sense of the past.
discovertarnavamare.org
estragno

Christmas Market, Sibiu
A small Christmas Market is held in the beautiful setting of Sibiu’s central square. It is straight out of Ruritanian romance, and there’s a very good chance that there will be snow to add to the atmosphere. There are plenty of cosy cafes around the square and the glühwein was only 60p a glass. We stayed at Casa Luxembourg in the centre, which was both comfortable and very reasonable.
casaluxemburg.ro, doubles from £50
tireeandcoll2

Sighisoara
In a forest near Sighisoara, we found ammonites in a forest stream, saw really beautiful insects, and picked and ate delicious wild raspberries with our picnic, which included the ubiquitous strong plum spirit. The raspberries were also sold at the roadside by gypsy women and girls along with baskets of fungi. In the middle of nowhere on a wooded hill we came across an American archeology professor plus students excavating a fourth-century Hunnish settlement. And as we crossed a stream on the way back, there glistening in the mud was the very recently formed spoor of a large brown bear. Casa Cu Cerb (casacucerb.ro/en) in the medieval citadel does amazing pork dishes.
apetergill

A bear rescued bear from the streets of BrasovLiberty Bear Sanctuary, Brasov
This bear rescue centre is a wonderful experience. It is 5km outside a town called Zarnesti, easily reached by train from Brasov: you will need a taxi from Zarnesti. Book in advance: they need a minimum of 10 visitors. You will see bears (60 to 70) that have awful histories but are now living in a safe and happy environment.
ampbears.ro
bearski

Viscri
Viscri is a pretty Saxon village north-west of Brasov with a fortified church that’s a Unesco world heritage site (climb the tower for great views). Many Saxon buildings have been restored and a traditional way of life endures – the cows are driven to the fields in the early morning, returning in the evening, and people use horses and carts. You can stay in a guesthouse belonging to Prince Charles.
transylvaniancastle.com
jlvcardiff

Nomad Camp, Vármezo
The Nomad camp is in an idyllic small village in Transylvania, away from the distractions of modern life. The restaurant serves delicious traditional fare including fresh fish from the camp’s lake. It’s a million miles away from English camping: you spend the night snuggled up in a luxurious yurt with a log fire and animal skin rug. Cleanse your skin and your soul as you bathe in the camp’s salt bath, or treat yourself to a massage. It’s a comfortable and completely unique experience, and great value (B&B €15pppn).
+40 746 777 043, nomadcamp.eu
bla2591

Valea VerdeValea Verde, near Sighisoara
My parents took me to this complex of restored farmhouses when I was 14 and very interested in eastern Europe. We arrived to gorgeous rolling countryside, with wildlife including golden oriole and eagles. This Saxon/Romanian village was friendly and tranquil, and Valea Verde was run on an easygoing basis that helped support the community. The food was excellent, especially the veranda breakfast. The traditional ways, solid churches and castles were a fascinating contrast to the relics of communism.
discover-transilvania.com
samboyd

Cisnadioaran, near Sibiu
Di and Jez provide a fully inclusive stay in this traditional Saxon village with its storks, howling dogs and unmade roads. Di’s food is outstanding, and the highlight are the tours, tailored to what you want to see, from salt mines to mountain peaks, remote hill walks, bustling markets, historic towns … and they even collect you from the airport. This is the best way to get to know Transylvania.
+40 2 695 62119, secrettransylvania.co.uk
johnellis

Bucharest

Count Dracula Club, Bucharest
An inevitable nod to Romania’s literary heritage. Spooky inside and out, with themed, good-value meals and friendly staff, it offers a chance to “taste the preparations served to Jonathan Harker on his visit to Count Dracula’s castle”.
+40 21 312 1353, count-dracula.ro
mixuju

West

Timisoara
Dubbed Little Vienna, Timisoara, birthplace of Romania’s revolution, has a ring of parks, a lovely river, pretty squares, an opera house, a theatre-in-the-park, museums and a sensational art gallery. Hotel Central has no frills, but is clean and cheap.
hotel-central.ro, doubles from £35 
wheretonext

Black Sea

Restaurant Chevalet, Mamaia
This has an idyllic location on a spit of land between Lake Siutghiol and the Black Sea. Prices are low and the cooking is almost a floor show – the cheery chef prepares food at the table, mostly freshly caught fish.
+40 721 421501, restaurantchevalet.com
bowbank

North

Sighet, Maramures region
Sighet, on the border with Ukraine, has an oddly stately and historical feel. It has a fascinating market, and splendid, head-scarved matriarchs sitting behind stinking vats of good cheese. Try the old-fashioned Coroana hotel. The Museum of Arrested Thought, housed in a former jail, offers moments of genuine sadness and quiet despair, but the Merry Cemetery makes mortality amusing and vibrant.
hotelcoroana.ro, doubles from £20 
chrisbeal

Source: Guardian