Things to do
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Densuș Church
A stone church of about 1300 built almost entirely from material carried up from Ulpia Traiana, with Roman funerary altars used as columns and a lion still lying on the roof. Services are still held in it.
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Prislop Monastery
A monastery founded in the fourteenth century in a wooded side valley, rebuilt several times, and now one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the country because of the grave of Arsenie Boca. Expect queues on saints' days.
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Retezat National Park
The country's first national park, declared in 1935, holding about eighty glacial lakes above 1,800 metres including Bucura, the largest in the Carpathians. A core reserve is closed to walkers and the rest needs two days to reach properly.
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Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa
The Roman capital of Dacia, founded about 108 and named for the Dacian capital its legions had just destroyed, with a forum, an amphitheatre for five thousand and a temple precinct outside the walls. It sits in open fields and is walked rather than toured.