Cluj-Napoca

Currency

Pay in lei; the exchange houses around Piața Unirii and on Bulevardul Eroilor post their rates in the window and take little or no commission. Cluj is a card city — a week here without touching cash is entirely normal, including in bars and at market stalls.

ATMs & cards

Banca Transilvania is headquartered here and its machines are everywhere; BCR, BRD and ING are equally fine. Skip Euronet, and always decline the ATM’s own conversion — that offer is where the money goes.

Banca Transilvania is headquartered here, so its machines are the easiest to find.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety

Consistently rated among the safest cities in Romania, and it feels it: the centre is busy and well lit until late, and the risks are the ordinary ones of a student city — a bicycle left unlocked, a phone on a bar table. Take app taxis rather than the cars waiting outside the clubs.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa

Health & emergencies

Required to enter

No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.

Worth having

• Routine vaccinations up to date
• Tick-borne encephalitis if you will be walking in Carpathian forest between spring and autumn
• Rabies if you plan to work with animals or spend long periods in remote countryside

Getting treated

EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment. State hospitals are free at the point of use with an EHIC or GHIC, but under-resourced; the private networks — Regina Maria, MedLife, Sanador — are quick, English-speaking and cheap by Western standards, and are what most visitors end up using.

Ticks in forest and long grass from April to October — check yourself after walks. Bears are genuinely present in the Carpathians around Brașov: keep food sealed, never approach one, and do not walk mountain trails at dusk. In the Danube Delta the mosquitoes from May to August are relentless and need proper repellent rather than a supermarket spray.

Orientation, not medical advice. Entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history and where you have been — check with a travel clinic or your national health service four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

A university town’s eating economy: excellent value at lunch, ambitious at dinner, and a coffee scene that would not embarrass Vienna. Look for varză à la Cluj, and eat at least once in the streets around Piața Muzeului. The students keep prices honest — a good main is 45-60 lei.

Getting around

• Bus, trolleybus and tram (CTP) — about 3.50 lei for 60 minutes, paid by contactless card or the 24pay app
• Walking — the centre from Piața Unirii to the botanical garden is twenty minutes end to end
• Bolt — plentiful and cheap, and the easiest way home after a long night in the student quarter
• Bicycle — flat along the Someș, and the riverside path is the pleasant way across town
• Airport: bus 5 runs from the terminal to Piața Mihai Viteazu in about 30 minutes for the price of a normal ticket

Internet speed

Broadband here runs at 2.2× the global median of 128 Mbps. Mobile runs at 76% of the global median of 110 Mbps.

Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured May 2026

Must-see

Things to do

• Climb the Cetățuia for the view over the rooftops
• See the Gothic St Michael’s Church on Piața Unirii
• Spend an afternoon in the botanical garden and its Japanese garden
• Go out in the bars around Piața Muzeului
• Visit the Ethnographic Museum’s open-air village section
• Time a visit for Untold or Electric Castle if festivals are your thing

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Romanian

• HelloBună ziuaBOO-nuh ZEE-wa
• Hi (informal)Salutsa-LOOT
• PleaseVă rogvuh ROG
• Thank youMulțumescmool-tsoo-MESK
• Yes / NoDa / Nuda / noo
• Excuse meScuzați-măskoo-ZATS-muh
• How much is it?Cât costă?kuht KOS-tuh
• The bill, pleaseNota, vă rogNO-ta vuh ROG
• Do you speak English?Vorbiți engleză?vor-BEETS en-GLEH-zuh
• CheersNorocno-ROK
• GoodbyeLa revederela reh-veh-DEH-reh

A Romance language in a Slavic neighbourhood — with Italian or Spanish you will read the signs long before you can hear the speech. English is widely spoken by anyone under forty and in every hotel; French is more common with older people. The letters ș and ț are "sh" and "ts", and î and â are a sound English does not have, somewhere behind the vowel in "roses".

Religion

Romanian Orthodox

About four in five Romanians are Orthodox, and it is practised rather than nominal — churches are busy on ordinary weekday mornings and people cross themselves passing one from a bus. Visitors are welcome at services: stand, keep quiet, do not walk in front of the icons, and cover shoulders and knees. Easter, not Christmas, is the great feast, and the whole country slows down for it. Transylvania is the exception to all of this, with Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches in the same square as the Orthodox one — a legacy of Hungarian and Saxon settlement that the fortified churches still record.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Take your shoes off when you enter someone’s home — slippers will be offered, and refusing them is the odd move
• Say bună ziua on entering a small shop, and la revedere on the way out
• Accept the țuică poured on arrival, or at least touch the glass to your lips
• Cover shoulders and knees in Orthodox churches, and stand rather than sit if the congregation is standing
• Bring an odd number of flowers if you are invited to dinner — even numbers are for graves

Don't

• Do not use "gypsy" as a synonym for Romanian. Roma are one of the country’s minorities and the conflation is the single fastest way to sour a conversation
• Do not open with Dracula and expect delight — Vlad Țepeș is a national figure here and the vampire is a Victorian novelist’s invention
• Do not photograph during an Orthodox service, or icons where a sign asks you not to
• Do not haggle in shops; markets are the only place where it is normal, and even there gently
• Do not expect the bill to be split to the last leu in company — one person tends to pay and it evens out over a trip