Summer is quite warm, with extended sunny days. The hottest areas in summer are the lowlands in southern and eastern Romania where 100 F is often reached in July and August. Temperatures are always cooler in the mountains.
Owing to its distance from the open sea and position on the southeastern portion of the European continent, Romania has a climate that is transitional between temperate and continental with four distinct seasons.
Romania’s geographical diversity has led to an accompanying diversity of flora and fauna.
Nature has been particularly generous with the land of Romania, a country whose relief is not only varied but also harmoniously distributed. There are three major, well-differentiated relief steps: the highest is represented by the Carpathian Mountains, the middle by the Sub-Carpathians, the hils and the tablelands, and the low one by the plains, the river meadows and the Danube Delta. The main characteristic feature of the relief components is their proportional distribution, in the form of an amphitheatre.
The mountains treching in the shape of an arch in the central part cover 31% of the country’s area, the hills and the tableands which descend from them occupy 36%, and the plains, extending towards the southern and western borders, take up 33%.
The transport infrastructure has been improving quite significantly recently, even though roads remain a weak point. There are several highways under construction, but as of yet none are fully operational. Train travel, however, has improved dramatically. Several upgrade projects are under way for several railway tracks and that makes rail traffic on those lines a bit slow for the time being.
Romanians are quite hospitable. In the countryside and small towns, they welcome foreign tourists and, occasionally, they might even invite you for a lunch.
It is a country of great natural beauty and diversity and a rich cultural heritage. Romania enchants visitors with its scenic mountain landscapes and unspoilt rural areas, but also with its historic cities and its busy capital. Over the last decade, it has seen significant development and is one of the most recent members of the European Union. Still, it may surprise some of its visitors who are used to western Europe. Romania is a large country which can sometimes be shocking with contrasts: some cities are truly Western Europe; some villages can seem to have been brought back from the past.
In general, Romania’s climate is transitional between temperate regions (the southeast can feel positively Mediterranean) and the more extreme weather characteristics of the continental interior.
