Romania: Transylvania

This new, fourth edition of Bradt’s Romania: Transylvania remains the only standalone, full-length, English-language travel guidebook to Transylvania - the legendary, enchanting and increasingly popular region of Romania. Co-authored by former British Ambassador to Romania Paul Brummell, Romania: Transylvania has been thoroughly updated by prolific travel writer Tim Burford, who wrote his first Romania guide in 1991.
Transylvania (the ’land beyond the forest’) is a wild, wooded, intensely romantic region, filled with mountains and gorges, myths and legends, dragons, bears, wolves - and vampires. Bram Stoker called it ’one of the wildest and least-known parts of Europe’, a description that remains true today. Comprehensive chapter-per-county coverage caters for a diverse range of interests, from city breaks to rural escapes, skiing to wildlife watching.
One of the most beautiful regions in central Europe and home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites, Transylvania preserves its cultural and artistic treasures in a landscape bordered on three sides by the Carpathian Mountains, which provide Romania’s finest skiing and hiking destinations. Hay meadows in the Lower Carpathians form a grassland ecosystem of extraordinary diversity, offering beautiful wildflower displays. The Carpathians are home too to lynx, wild boar and one of Europe’s largest populations of brown bear. Other natural phenomena include the Scarisoara Ice Cave in the Apuseni Mountains and the Sfanta Ana volcanic crater lake in Harghita County.
Transylvania’s cultural riches include the Dacian fortresses of the Orastie Mountains, including Sarmizegetusa Regia, conquered by Roman Emperor Trajan in AD106. Historic Sighisoara is a picture-perfect medieval hill town. The fortified churches of southern Transylvania are testament to the perils of life in medieval Saxon communities, subject to frequent attacks from Ottoman raiders. The historic cities of Cluj, Sibiu and Brasov are rightly feted (and host internationally renowned film, electronic music and theatre festivals). At Turda’s salt mine, you can ride the big wheel in an underground amusement park. And, if you’re inspired by the Hotel Transylvania or Twilight films, why not follow the Dracula trail, visiting sites linked to Bram Stoker’s novel? Whatever your interests, with Bradt’s Romania: Transylvania, you can discover the region’s many and varied attractions.

Born and educated in the UK, the lateLucy Mallows worked for 12 years in Budapest as a reporter. She first visited Transylvania in 1997, but her links with Romania go back to the late 1980s when she worked as a volunteer for Operation Romanian Villages, and to an early childhood fairytale The Lost Princess, written in 1924 by Queen Marie of Romania. As a travel writer and journalist, she contributed regularly to many international dailies and magazines, and wrote guidebooks and articles on countries from Iceland to Portugal. An expert on Central European culture, she spoke six foreign languages including Hungarian, Czech and Russian. Lucy Mallows was also the author of the Bradt guides to Bratislava and Slovakia. She died in 2018.

Paul Brummell is presently British Ambassador to Latvia, having been the British Ambassador to Romania (2014-18). A career diplomat, he joined the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in 1987. He has also served as British Ambassador to Turkmenistan and to Kazakhstan (as well as non-resident Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan) and High Commissioner to the countries of the eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados. In 2016, he was awarded the CMG for services to British foreign policy. He is the author of Bradt guides to Transylvania, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. He has also written Diplomatic Gifts: a history in fifty presen

Romania has long been part of the writing heritage of Tim Burford, for that country initiated the fruitful, decades-long and ongoing partnership between the experienced travel writer and Bradt. After five years as a publisher, he wrote Bradt’s Hiking Guide to Romania in 1991. As well as writing the second edition of that guide, Burford wrote much of the Rough Guide to Romania, including the Transylvania sections, until 2016. The region is dear to his heart, and he has been explored it every three to five years for more than 30 years. He has now written nine books for Bradt (and updated six others), his publications stretching from Uruguay to Uzbekistan, as well as writing Rough Guides to Romania, Alaska and Wales. Burford also leads hiking trips in Europe’s mountains, takes any excuse to get on a bike and explore (whether in his hometown of Cambridge or further afield), and blogs at unraveltravel.org.