Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca sits on the Someș river in northern Transylvania, with a historic centre that fits into a day and a half on foot: Union Square and St Michael's Church on one side, Museum Square and the 16th-century Reduta palace, now the Ethnographic Museum, on the other. Day two crosses the river to the viewpoint on Cetățuia hill and the Botanical Garden below Babeș-Bolyai University, founded in 1581. A third day, if there is one, goes to the Turda Salt Mine or the Turda Gorge.

A settlement on this site existed even before the Roman conquest of Dacia in 106 AD, when a Roman fort rose here and later the municipium of Napoca; the name Napoca was added back to the city only in 1974, when the communist authorities attached it to the Hungarian name Cluj for nationalist reasons. The city has been the seat of Babeș-Bolyai University since 1581, today the largest in Romania with about 45,000 students, and that number is still why the city reads as the country's university centre.

Cluj airport has its own bus line into the centre: route 5 (or A1E/8) takes about 26 min, on an ordinary fare of €0.66. The centre itself is walked — Union Square and Museum Square sit a few minutes apart — and a bridge over the Someș leads to the foot of Cetățuia hill, with a view over the whole Old Town.