Braşov - you can actually do it in a day

A good chunk of any Romanian itinerary will include quite a bit of time in Transylvania. What I’ve realised is with a little bit of intelligent planning and by picking a good time of the year you can largely be done with Braşov in 24 hours. The key attractions in Braşov’e periphery will naturally be the castles of Peles and Bran - the later of which is the base of Vlad the Impaler- the inspiration behind the Dracula fictions. Both castles can be efficiently covered with a Viator/getyourguide tour. If you are driving all the better head out early and you will wisely evade the traffic later in the day. Bran castle in particular is actually rather compact and can be dealt with in 90minutes or less. Peles is more of a modern residence of the Romanian monarchy and deserves a little more time as an impressive of architecture. I will be all honest Bran Castle is rather touristy and underwhelming size wise, it’s just one of those places you have to have been in Romania to check off a box but if you’ve had your share of Balkan castles it’s rather a disappointment. I am in Braşov in May the sun rises at shortly before 5 and sets at 20:30. What this means is you could easily walk around old Braşov town once you return from the castles at 4 or 5pm with plenty of time to spare. You can easily walk from one end of the old town to the other in 15 minutes, meaning you can cover the Black Cathedral, the twin Black/White Towers, Strada Sforii (the Grafiti alley) and Catherine Gate efficiently. If you do decide to stay on in Transylvania then you can easily move on by the days end towards sighisoara, or back to Bucharest.