Iași

Currency

Lei, and Iași is cheap enough that the difference between a good rate and a bad one is small in absolute terms — but the exchange houses on Bulevardul Ștefan cel Mare are honest and quick. Moldova is next door and its leu is a different currency; do not accept one as change.

ATMs & cards

Use bank ATMs — Banca Transilvania, BCR, BRD — around Piața Unirii and the Palas complex, decline conversion, and avoid the independent machines in the station. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, including on the trams.

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

Safe, provincial and used to foreign students, so a visitor attracts no particular attention. Petty theft is uncommon and violent crime rare. The standard national advice covers it: app taxis rather than street ones, and care with your phone on a crowded tram.

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

Moldavian cooking is the sweetest-toothed in Romania: try alivenci, poale-n brâu and cozonac alongside the standard ciorbe and grills. This is also wine country — Cotnari is an hour away — and a decent bottle in a restaurant starts around 60 lei. Student prices mean a proper dinner for two runs well under 200 lei.

Getting around

• Tram — the backbone of the city, about 4 lei for a ticket valid two hours across the network
• Walking — Palas, Piața Unirii and the Palace of Culture are a fifteen-minute triangle
• Bolt — abundant and among the cheapest fares in the country
• Bus 50 — the airport line, running every half hour to the centre and the station for the standard 4 lei fare
• Trains — the overnight to Bucharest is a Romanian institution; by day it is a slow six hours and the bus is quicker

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

• Tour the Palace of Culture and its four museums
• See the stone lacework on Trei Ierarhi
• Walk Copou Park to Eminescu’s linden tree
• Visit the Cetățuia and Galata monasteries on the hills
• Drink Cotnari and Bucium wine where it is made
• Sit out an evening on the Palas terraces with the students

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