Sibiu: A Budget Traveler's Guide to Romania's Best-Kept Secret

Sibiu is the city that makes you wonder why you ever paid Western European prices. I have slept in hostels on six continents, and the ones in Sibiu are cleaner, friendlier, and cheaper than most I have found in countries that charge three times as much for a bed. The city is not a secret anymore, but it is still priced like one.

The first thing you notice is the eyes. The old town buildings have attic windows shaped like half-lidded eyes that seem to follow you down the cobblestones. The Saxons built them this way in the 1700s to ventilate grain stores. Now they are Sibiu’s signature, and they cost nothing to look at.

Getting to Sibiu is easier than it used to be. Sibiu International Airport sits 5 kilometers west of the old town. Wizz Air runs budget flights from London Luton, Munich, Vienna, and Dortmund. A one-way ticket booked two months ahead often costs less than a train from Bucharest. From the airport, bus 11 runs to the center every 30 minutes and costs 2.50 lei, about 50 cents. A taxi should not cost more than 35 lei. If you are coming overland, the train from Bucharest takes five to six hours and costs around 70 lei for a second-class seat. The CFR website sells tickets online, but the machines at Bucharest North Station often break. Buy at the counter and arrive early. The bus is faster and sometimes cheaper, but the trains have more character, which in Romania means unpredictable heating and conductors who still punch paper tickets.

Accommodation in Sibiu is where your budget wins. A dorm bed at a decent hostel in the old town runs 50 to 75 lei per night, roughly 10 to 15 euros. I stayed at one on Strada Turnului where the owner, a former mountaineer, drew me a map of day hikes on a napkin and refused to let me pay for coffee. Private rooms in guesthouses start around 120 lei, about 25 euros, and often include breakfast of eggs, cheese, tomatoes, and bread that the owner’s mother baked that morning. Avoid the big hotels on the edge of town. They charge Western rates and shuttle you into the center on slow buses. The old town guesthouses are half the price and you step out the door into the medieval core.

The old town itself is compact. You can walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes, but you will want to take longer. Start at Piața Mare, the main square, where the Brukenthal Palace sits with its clock tower and yellow facade. The square was paved with granite in 2007 when Sibiu was European Capital of Culture, and it still looks sharp. The Council Tower rises 73 meters at the square’s edge. Climb the 141 steps to the top for a view over the red-tiled roofs and the Făgăraș Mountains to the south. The ticket costs 5 lei, about one euro. That is the most expensive view you will buy all day.

Cross the Bridge of Lies to Piața Mică. The 1859 iron bridge connects the two squares and carries a local legend about merchants who swore false oaths and were thrown off it. The bridge groans when you walk across it, which is either the iron flexing or the ghosts complaining. Either way, it is free.

The Evangelical Cathedral on Piața Huet dominates the skyline with its 73-meter tower, the tallest in Transylvania. Entry is free, though a 5-lei donation is polite. Inside, the fourteenth-century crucifix and the baptismal font are original. The real prize is the tower climb, another 200 steps, but the view at sunset is worth the burning calves. If the organist is practicing, sit down and listen. The acoustics are sharp enough to hear a whisper from the nave.

Sibiu was built by German settlers, the Transylvanian Saxons, who arrived in the twelfth century and stayed for eight hundred years. Their houses, churches, and street names remain, though most of the German population left in the 1990s. The result is a Romanian city that feels like a shrunken Nuremberg, with Gothic doorways, arched passageways, and courtyard wells that still have water in them.

For museums, the Brukenthal National Museum is the headline. Samuel von Brukenthal, a Saxon baron and Habsburg governor, built it in the late 1700s and filled it with paintings he bought in Vienna and Amsterdam. The permanent collection includes Rubens, Van Dyck, and a surprisingly good crop of Romanian landscape painters from the nineteenth century. Entry is 20 lei, about 4 euros, and the building itself, with its rococo staircase and mirrored halls, is half the reason to go. On the last Friday of every month, entry is free after 4 PM.

The ASTRA National Museum Complex sits 3 kilometers south of the old town in the Dumbrava Sibiului forest. It is an open-air ethnographic museum with over 300 wooden houses, windmills, churches, and workshops moved here from villages across Romania. You can walk through a Maramureș wooden gate, watch a blacksmith work a forge, and stand inside an eighteenth-century Orthodox church that was disassembled plank by plank and rebuilt here. Entry is 25 lei, about 5 euros, and the grounds are large enough to spend half a day. In summer, the lake inside the park rents paddle boats for 10 lei an hour. Take bus 13 from the center, which costs 2.50 lei, or walk along the forest path in about 45 minutes.

Food in Sibiu is where the budget traveler eats like a local without trying. A soup of the day at a traditional restaurant costs 12 to 15 lei. Ciorbă de fasole, a bean sour soup with smoked pork, is the standard lunch and costs around 14 lei at most old town spots. Sarmale, cabbage rolls stuffed with pork and rice, run 25 to 30 lei for a portion of five. Mămăligă, the polenta side dish, comes free or for a few extra lei. A half liter of Ursus or Timișoreana beer costs 8 to 10 lei. For cheaper eating, the daily market on Strada Oltarului sells fresh cheese, smoked sausages, and tomatoes that taste like tomatoes should. Buy bread from a baker on Strada Tribunei and make your own lunch for under 15 lei total.

My regular spot was a small cellar restaurant on a side street near the Lutheran Cathedral. They served tocană, a pork stew with onions and peppers, with a basket of bread and a glass of house wine for 28 lei. The wine was from a vineyard near Mediaș, twenty kilometers north, and it was rough and honest, the way house wine should be. The owner played folk records on a turntable behind the bar and argued with the cook about football.

For breakfast, the café on Piața Mică opens at 7 AM and serves covrigi, Romanian pretzels, for 3 lei each. They are warm, salty, and the size of your face. Pair one with an espresso for 6 lei and you have fuel until lunch.

Coffee culture in Sibiu is better than it should be. Several cafés roast their own beans, and a flat white costs 10 to 12 lei, about 2 euros. The one on Strada Mitropoliei has a garden courtyard with grapevines overhead and WiFi that actually works, which in Romania is not guaranteed.

Day trips from Sibiu are cheap if you use the local buses. Cisnădie, a Saxon village 10 kilometers south, has a fortified church with defensive walls you can walk. The bus costs 5 lei and takes twenty minutes. Cisnădioara, a smaller settlement 3 kilometers further, has a Romanesque chapel on a hill that dates to 1223. The view across the valley is open and green, and on weekdays you might be the only person there.

Păltiniș, the ski resort 30 kilometers south, is worth the trip in any season. In winter, a day pass costs 80 lei and the slopes are gentle enough for learners. In summer, the resort is a trailhead for hikes into the Cindrel Mountains. The bus from Sibiu costs 12 lei and winds through forest for an hour. Even if you do not ski or hike, the mountain air at 1,400 meters is a break from the valley heat.

The Sibiu Christmas Market runs from late November to early January and fills Piața Mare with wooden stalls, mulled wine, and roasted chestnuts. It is smaller than the ones in Germany or Austria, but so are the prices. A cup of vin fiert costs 10 lei, and the sausages are grilled over open flames by people who have been doing it for decades. If you are in Romania in December, this is the reason to come to Sibiu.

Here is what a day costs if you are careful. Bed in a hostel dorm: 60 lei. Breakfast of covrigi and coffee: 9 lei. Lunch of soup and bread: 18 lei. Dinner of stew and beer: 35 lei. Museum entry: 20 lei. Local transport: 10 lei. Total: 152 lei, about 30 euros. Add 20 lei for snacks and you are still under 35 euros a day. A private room doubles the accommodation cost but keeps everything else the same.

What to skip: the tourist restaurants on Piața Mare with English menus and saxophone players. They charge double for sarmale that comes from a factory kitchen. The food is not bad, but you are paying for the view of the square, and you already got that for free. Also skip the guided walking tours that promise hidden tunnels and secret passages. Sibiu’s history is not hidden. It is in the buildings, the street names, and the church plaques. Read a free city map from the tourist office and walk yourself.

The tourist office on Strada Tribunei is actually useful. They have free maps, sell bus tickets, and the staff speaks English without being annoyed about it. Ask which festivals are coming. Sibiu hosts theater, jazz, and medieval reenactment events through the year, and some of the best ones are free.

Sibiu is not a city that dazzles you at first sight. It is too quiet for that. But after two days of walking its cobblestones, eating stew that costs less than a London sandwich, and sleeping in a four-hundred-year-old house that costs less than a Berlin dorm, you start to wonder why more people have not figured this out. The answer is they are busy paying twice as much in Prague.

One practical note: Romanian cash is still king in small restaurants and on buses. Carry lei. Some places take cards, but the machine is always broken or the network is down. There are ATMs on every square, and exchange offices do not charge commission. Do not change money at the airport. The rate is worse than in town by about 5 percent.

Another note: learn the word mulțumesc. It means thank you. Use it often. Romanians are formal about politeness, and a foreigner who tries earns patience and better service in return.