20 things to do in Brașov, Romania: a city of cobblestones and colour

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I’ve put together this guide to some lovely things to do in Brașov, Romania, for anyone looking for an alternative city break to somewhere pretty, interesting and not one of the usual well-trodden options in Europe. Brașov is a small, walkable city that’s incredibly pretty, with lots of photogenic cobbled streets and a busy square where you can sit and people-watch against the impressive backdrop of mountains. It’s absolutely full of history (and, of course, riddled with Dracula-related fun), and has a real German influence in its architecture from when it was a Saxon city. 

Like Bucharest, Brașov is relatively affordable for us Western European tourists. It’s clean and well maintained, with neat and tidy parks and freshly painted shops. The café culture is thriving, but the bar culture is possibly even more so. It may look like a sleepy little medieval city on the surface but it really comes alive at night. Some of the main streets become one long terrace full of both locals and tourists enjoying a drink.

Anyway, here are some things to do in Brasov that I personally recommend…

20 things to do in Brașov, Romania

1. Go on the free walking tour – one of the best things to do in Brasov for your first day

I know I say this in every travel guide on this blog ever (sorry if you’re a regular and sick of it) but you can’t beat a good old walking tour to get a decent overview of any new city the day you arrive.

The Brașov Walkabout free tour is no exception. It covers all the main sights, including the first Romanian school, which was probably the most interesting bit for me.

The tour meets every day by the fountain in the main square and lasts about 2 hours. Starting times vary depending on the season, so check ahead. And as ever, despite the tour being free, you should tip at the end.

2. Watch the world go by in Piața Sfatului (Council Square)

Brașov’s main square is a picture-perfect place for people watching from one of the many bars or cafés around it. It’s said to be the place that the legendary Pied Piper led the unsuspecting (and frankly idiotic) children of Hamlin from.

I’d love to show you a photo of it, or describe the best café or bar to enjoy it from… but unfortunately, during my visit to do research for this guide, the whole thing was full of scaffolding and stage equipment because they were setting up for a small music festival. The idyllic square was reduced to a sea of poles, cables and machinery.

To add insult to injury, James Blunt was performing. You couldn’t make this up.

3. Photograph the city’s answer to the ‘Hollywood’ sign – one of the more bizarre things to do in Brașov

On top of Mount Tampa overlooking the city of Brașov, you can’t miss the massive Hollywood-style sign spelling out the city’s name in white letters. But just in case you missed it in the daytime, it goes one step further than the Hollywood one and lights up at night! You can’t fail to spot it from almost everywhere in the city.

As bizarre as it seems to have a Hollywood-style city name sign in a pretty, fairytale-like Romanian city, there is a reason for it.

Between 1950 and 1960, Brașov was given the name ‘Orașul Stalin’ (Stalin City). A strange part of this involved spelling out the name ‘Stalin’ on Mount Tampa using fir trees. Needless to say, they got rid of that as soon as they could, and decided to replace it with the Hollywood-style letters. A great decision in a world before the internet, because now everyone wants an Instagram photo with it!

4. Go up the Tampa Cable Car…

This is a must-do. I mean, when is a cable car not a must-do? There has to be some sort of unwritten rule about that.

You can find the entrance here. It costs 18 LEI per person there and back, or 10 LEI just to go up if you have the time and energy to hike down (which should take about an hour).

The actual cable car journey must be a maximum of about 3 minutes, and you have to queue for a long time if you’re there in summer. But the views as you go up are worth it. Keep an eye out for brown bears as you go, because apparently there are lots living around there.

5. … and enjoy the views from the Brașov ‘Hollywood’ sign

When you reach the top and get out of the cable car, you’re deposited in a building with a café. This is not the end. You need to go out of the back and walk up the hill to get to the Hollywood sign and the viewing platform. This is where I took most of my photos, but you can go up even further through the forest for a slightly different angle.

You’ll be able to spot the different bits of Brașov laid out before you: the uber-German buildings around Piata Sfatului, the warren of traditional Romanian streets to the south, and the more modern flats and factories around the outside.

Just to warn you, it’s a very rubble-filled and uneven path up. I did it in white sandals because I would rather have a coordinated outfit than be comfortable, but if you’re a practical person who doesn’t like being in pain, I’d recommend trainers or some kind of boot.

Oh and there are plenty of other tourists to take your photo if you ask nicely. My top tip is to ask the youngest people around you. They always take at least three so that you end up with one that you don’t hate. Anyone older will only take one and it’ll be of their own thumb.

6. Have a vegan lunch at Simone 

Simone is a lovely little bistro serving local food with loads of veggie/vegan options. It was definitely my favourite place we ate lunch in Brașov.

The interior is gorgeous, with a lot of house plants knocking around and beautiful tiles. There’s a full menu or a menu of the day, and both have excellent options if you’re not a meat eater. Like many hip eateries in Romania, they served amazing flavoured water (for free) and fresh juices (more on them in #15 of this list). Considering the quality of the homemade food, it was really affordable – I mean, everywhere in Romania is relatively cheap for Western European tourists, but this kind of place could easily be more expensive and pretentious. Luckily, it’s not. Just very cosy and tasty.

7. Wander into hidden courtyards

I found this little beauty through a sort of tunnel off Piața Sfatului, and it’s an orthodox church tucked away out of sight within a small courtyard full of plants.

You can go inside the church for free to have a look around. It has lots of colourful frescos, but I think the doorway takes the prize for best photo opportunity. I love a good door.

8. Visit the Nicolae Titulescu park

For a city already surrounded by green mountains, Brașov greedily has more than its fair share of green spaces too.

The Nicolae Titulescu park is only small, but it ticks all the city park boxes: old men playing boules and/or cards, benches to sit and people watch from, a decent amount of trees to block out some of the city around it so that you feel a bit cut off from it. It’ll only take you a few minutes to walk through, but if you’re after somewhere to sit and eat an ice cream or something, it’s not a bad shout.

9. Admire the German-style architecture

If someone picked you up and plonked you down in Brașov, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d landed in a town around Munich or somewhere else in Bavaria. Not only are there are lot of German tourists (and thus the beerhouses to cater to them), but the architecture is very German.

In fact, Brașov used to be called Kronstadt (Crown City) and was built by Transylvanian Saxon knights who were originally from Germany. The crown name also inspired a bit of a running crown theme, and you can see the crown symbol on loads of things around Brașov, including the gate (see #9 of this list).

10. Try traditional food – one of the best things to do in Brașov for first-time visitors to Romania

If you’re after some traditional Romanian food, now is your chance. Most of it is cosy fare: soups (inside bread bowls), stews, pies and all that sort of thing.

There are plenty of veggie options in most places, such as the traditional mushroom sour soup. Even if it doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, it’s worth trying. I was pleasantly surprised by how much less ‘hearty’ some of it was compared with other Eastern European fodder, and also by how easy it is to avoid meat creeping into salads and sauces.

11. Experience Romanian café culture

I think I could spend all day every day in Brașov just hopping around its lovely cafés. Although a lot of them in the main square and along the main shopping street (Strada Republicii) are more geared towards tourists, you’ll still find loads that are full of locals. And even among tourists, a lot of them are Romanians from other places in the country.

Some of the streets become one massive terrace with so many outdoor seating areas outside cafés.

I don’t know whether it was because it was August, but I got a real sense of outdoor living like in Italy and Portugal. People don’t sit round huddled up in their living rooms for a drink, they go out and sit outside a café to watch the world go by. It doesn’t stop when the sun goes down either, because most of them turn into bars at night. Again, it may have been the August effect, but at night they were HEAVING and you couldn’t get a seat anywhere.

For regular readers of this blog, yes I managed to find places serving English breakfast tea. I know you were worried.

12. Walk through the imposing Catherine’s Gate

As gates go, this Catherine’s one is pretty extra. It’s medieval and topped with some impressively Disney-esque turrets. It dates back to the 1500s and was built by the Tailors’ Guild to defend the town. You can still see some of the old town walls next to it. Sticking with the crown theme, there’s a motif of one so look out for that.

To the left of the gate from the angle in this photo, you’ll find a wooden eagle carved into a tree stump (obviously) and to the right, there’s the Schei Gate, which is for traffic and not as fancy.

13. Eat delicious Italian food at Dei Frati – one of the best things to do in Brașov for foodies

Dei Frati was hands-down the best evening meal we had in Brașov, and definitely the best atmosphere of anywhere I’ve eaten for a long time. You know when you imagine the perfect setting to sit outside and eat? Well this is it. Fairylights, cobblestones, flowers: everything you need for al fresco dining in a cute little side-street.

The food was incredible (and as a weird coincidence, served on the same turquoise plates we have at home!). Whenever somewhere does homemade pasta, I’m all over it. We shared a starter of bruschetta and then had a mixture of veggie and pescatarian pastas for our mains. Everything was exquisite and on a par with the homemade pasta we had in Rome.

I was about to burst but managed to find a small amount of room for dessert, although this did involve discreetly unbuttoning the top of my skirt. Such is life.

14. Visit the Black Church

Brașov’s Black Church is so called because it’s a church and it’s black. Well, it’s blackened. I’d say it’s more of a grubby brown colour. It’s from the 15th century but only became black in 1689, when the Habsburgs (or their forces, not the actual royals) came and burnt it.

On one of its pillars, you can see a statue of a boy leaning forwards like he’s dropped his phone off the edge. No one knows what he’s meant to be up to. But naturally there are plenty of guesses like he was the son of the priest in charge when the fire happened and he was on the roof but couldn’t escape. Others say he was involved in building the church and someone pushed him off.

Equally grim, you can see bullet holes in pillars inside the church (it’s 1.5 euro to get in). They’re not that old though. Apparently, they happened in 1989 during the revolution.

You can go to an organ recital on Tuesday evening if you’re into that kind of thing. I’m very much not.

15. Pretend to be healthier than you are with some juice

I was pleasantly surprised by how many cafés and restaurants had loads of different homemade fruit/vegetable juices on offer. This made me feel better about the insane amount of food I stuffed my face with throughout our trip.

The pic below is a delicious raspberry sour juice from #6 on this list, but we had brilliant homemade juice in loads of places and there seemed to be a lot of juice bars around in both cities we visited. I can’t find anything online that says Romania is particularly into juice (in fact, this article says that Romania has the lowest consumption of fruit juice in the EU?!) so maybe we just happened to go to particularly juicy places… Either way, it’s got to be better for me than ordering a(nother) G&T.

16. Squeeze down the tiny Rope Street

This sounds good doesn’t it? A really narrow street – one of the narrowest in Europe. What a cute little novelty eh. Wouldn’t it make a good photo, much like the square that I ALSO didn’t get a photo of? Yes. Yes, it would.

But unfortunately Rope Street was closed for renovation while we were there. Yup. But unlike the square being closed, I can’t really blame Jame Blunt for this. I mean, I’m going to anyway. Why must he torment me so?

Still, I’m going to keep Rope Street on this list because if you’re visiting Brașov, it’ll most likely be open and fully renovated by the time I’ve published this post and you can see what it’s all about even if I wasn’t allowed to.

17. Do a day trip to Bran Castle (‘Dracula’s Castle’… sort of)

If you really want to see Bran Castle as one of your Romania must-dos, then you can get there from Brasov. HOWEVER, I’m not going to recommend it without a couple of warnings…

First off, the journey. Our lovely hotel receptionist did warn us it’d be ‘interesting’. You know this isn’t a luxury travel blog by any means. I’m 100% a Premier Inn and public transport kind of girl. But I struggled with spending 45 mins being boiled alive on a filthy, ancient bus. The fact it was August didn’t help, I know. It it was like an oven and far too many of our fellow tourists seemed to have not grasped the concept of ‘deodorant’. Hmm. Anyway, if you’re harder than me, the bus from terminal number 2 is at least cheap (8 LEI each).

Second, the town of Bran was full of tourist tat. That was a shame really, because Bran Castle itself was quite imposing and beautiful. It was also insanely busy (the photo below is proof that tactical angles are everything!). It was August, so crowds are to be expected, but I’ve heard from other travellers that it’s pretty chokka all year round.

So basically, if you’re planning on visiting the castle, go for it but with these things in mind. If you’re a big Dracula fan (and you know it’s not really the Dracula Castle) or if you just love beautiful castles, it’s worth seeing.

18. Treat yo’self at a very cute shop (Pebs Concept) – one of the best things to do in Brasov for shopaholics 

Pebs Concept was my favourite boutique shop in Brasov. Wherever we go, I like to hunt out little independent shops to buy myself some kind of treat to remember the holiday by.

Pebs had loads of really unusual handmade jewellery, but not the disgusting silver Celtic mess you sometimes find when somewhere says ‘handmade jewellery’. This was on-trend, delicate gold stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in Anthropologie or somewhere like that. It also sold unique homewares, photo frames, bags, cards, bathroom stuff, and art prints.

A pair of their earrings I had my eye on were 78 RON (about £15) so it wasn’t super cheap if you’re used to Primark prices like me, but it was worth it. If you think about it, you can spend more than that on the high street for earrings that later go green and that everyone else has too. Plus, you’re on holiday, which is the perfect excuse to treat yo’self.

19. Stay in affordable luxury at Antler Boutique Hotel

I’m going to wrap up this post on things to do in Brasov with where to stay to do all of the things.

We spent our trip at the utterly lovely Hotel Antler. I rarely rave about anywhere we stay (and they’ve not asked me to give them a shoutout or anything), but I would highly recommend it. Our room was stunning, with lots of antler-themed things going on. But the main thing I liked was coming into the hotel from the bustling, warm street and immediately being hit with a (not overpowering) scent of cleanliness and a general aura of calm. Something about it was very zen. The staff were really helpful without being overbearing. One girl even warned us about the crazy crowds at Bran Castle (which we should have paid more attention to!).

For only £48 per night, you can’t go wrong. I mean, I’ve paid double that for a barely-functioning Travelodge in the UK, so this was an absolute steal in my view.

Final thoughts on things to do in Brașov, Romania

Brasov is incredibly pretty, quaint and colourful – the perfect antidote to gritty, hip Bucharest.

It was also one of the most tourist-filled places I have ever been, which I was half expecting but was still an eye opener. It’s a huge tourist hub – just not so much for British tourists. It was full of German, French and Italian couples and groups of friends on their holidays. We didn’t meet any other British people, which was really nice. I like to avoid them at all costs.

It’s worth noting that the food is excellent in Brasov. That is the case for Bucharest too. Everything is made fresh and it was all incredible (oh and always worth the sometimes rather long wait!). Eating vegan, veggie or pescetarian requires some research, but that’s always the case. Once you’ve identified some options for each city, you’ll be impressed with how good they are.

Useful information: things to do in Brașov, Romania

Where to stay

We stayed at the gorgeous Hotel Antler, which was about £48 a night. See #20 on this list for more information.

How to get around

Romania as a whole is car-heavy. But Brașov is walkable and the public transport (buses or trains) to nearby places is functional (if a bit of a state!). There are two main bus stations in the city: Autogara 1, at the train station, and Autogara 2, on the Avram Iancu Street, by the football stadium.

When to go

Not August! Although I didn’t die (it was close), melting in Romania’s insane summer heat probably wasn’t the best idea. We ended up going at this time for various reasons outside our control, but we knew it wouldn’t be ideal. We survived though and I understand that it was unusually hot, even for August. Like most city breaks though, spring or early autumn are the best for exploring. Brasov gets cold and snowy in winter so that wouldn’t be ideal.

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