Hunedoara

Fix this before you set out, because the names defeat people. Sarmizegetusa Regia is the DACIAN capital: it sits at around twelve hundred metres in the Orăștie mountains, it is reached by a long and slow forest road followed by a walk, and what survives is a set of sanctuaries — a large circle of andesite posts, a smaller one, a rectangular sanctuary and a carved stone disc — laid out on terraces cut into a wooded ridge, with the remains of fortification walls in a distinctive masonry technique. It is atmospheric rather than monumental, the forest presses in on all sides, and it is UNESCO-listed along with several other hill fortresses in the same mountains. Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa is the ROMAN capital that came afterwards, and it lies about forty kilometres south-west on flat farmland near the modern village of the same name — a forum, an amphitheatre, temple platforms and a small site museum, easily reached by car on ordinary roads and taking about an hour. The two are separate journeys of very different character: one is half a day and a mountain drive, the other is a straightforward roadside stop. If you have time for one and want atmosphere, take the mountain. If you want legible Roman town planning, take the plain. Just book the right one.

The castle is the county's famous building and it is genuinely spectacular, which is rare for something so heavily marketed. It rises from a rock above a river on the edge of a heavily industrial town, all height and verticality — a dense cluster of round and polygonal towers under steep tiled roofs, approached across a long timber bridge on stone piers, with an outer gallery of Gothic windows and a great hall inside supported on red marble columns. There is a deep well in the courtyard around which the guides tell a long-standing local story, a chapel, and a warren of chambers and stairs. Restoration over the past century has been enthusiastic and not always subtle, and purists grumble; the effect on arrival is undiminished. Go early or late, because coach parties concentrate in the middle of the day, and allow an hour and a half. The town around it is a former steelmaking centre and makes no claim on your time, which is worth knowing so that the contrast between the approach and the castle does not come as a shock.

Retezat National Park, in the south of the county, is Romania's oldest national park and holds the country's densest cluster of glacial lakes — around eighty of them scattered across granite basins above the treeline, of which Bucura is the largest in the country. It is serious walking country rather than a day-trip park: the standard approaches involve a long ascent to a plateau of tarns, ridges and chamois, and most people who come do it as a multi-day traverse staying in huts or camping. Weather changes quickly at that altitude and the health and safety guide covers what that means in practice. North of the range, the Hațeg basin is a UNESCO Global Geopark built around a genuine scientific curiosity: the fossil remains found here belong to dinosaur species markedly smaller than their relatives elsewhere, consistent with having evolved on an island in an ancient sea, and the geopark's visitor centres explain it well and are good with children. Nearby at Densuș stands one of the strangest churches in Europe — a small, squat, extremely old stone building assembled largely from masonry carted from the Roman capital down the road, with columns, inscribed blocks and carved fragments visible in its walls and a pair of Roman funerary lions on the roof.

Be honest about the geography: Hunedoara sits west of the main Transylvanian towns and south of the road to Maramureș, which puts it off the arc most Romanian itineraries follow — the trip-planning guide sets that arc out, and this county is a deliberate detour rather than a stop along it. That detour is worth making for two kinds of traveller. If you care about the deep past, there is nothing else in Romania that stacks Dacian, Roman, medieval and geological interest into one county this way, and two full days will not exhaust it. If you walk, Retezat is among the best mountain areas in the country and justifies its own three or four days. For everyone else, the castle alone is a reasonable half-day if you are already travelling between Transylvania and the west of the country, and it sits close enough to the main road to make that easy. Deva, the county seat, is the practical base with a fortress of its own on a volcanic hill above it and a funicular up to it. Spring and autumn are best; the mountain sites are hard work in high summer heat and the Dacian capital's forest road is unpleasant after heavy rain.