Romania

The Carpathians bend through Romania in a wide arc, closing round the high plateau of Transylvania like the rim of a bowl. Outside the curve lie the farm plains of Wallachia and Moldavia. The Danube marks most of the southern border, cuts through the Iron Gates gorge and ends in a delta of reed beds and floating islands where pelicans breed. Moldoveanu, in the Făgăraș range, is the highest summit. Winters bring hard frost.

The Dacians held these hills until Trajan’s legions conquered them in AD 106, a campaign carved in spiral relief on his column in Rome. In the Middle Ages the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia rose under rulers such as Vlad III and Stephen the Great, often as Ottoman vassals, while Transylvania answered to Hungary and later the Habsburgs. The principalities united in 1859 and declared independence in 1877; Transylvania joined them in 1918. Communist rule ended with Nicolae Ceaușescu’s overthrow in December 1989.

Orthodox Christianity is the faith of most Romanians, and the monastery churches of Bucovina are painted inside and out with saints and Last Judgements. Sarmale, cabbage leaves rolled round minced pork, come with mămăligă, cornmeal boiled thick and cut with a thread. Romanians call Mihai Eminescu their national poet, and Constantin Brâncuși reshaped modern sculpture; Nadia Comăneci scored the first perfect mark in Olympic gymnastics in 1976. Dacia builds cars at Mioveni, Constanța ships Black Sea cargo, and the plains grow wheat, maize and sunflowers.