CAPITAL BUCHAREST - POPULATION 22.3 MILLION - AREA 237,500 SQ KM - OFFICIAL LANGUAGE ROMANIAN
As Dracula, the country's unlikely poster boy, might say: Romanian tourism is looking bloody good. It's the planet's fourth fastest-growing tourism economy, with visitor numbers predicted to rocket between now and 2016. Low-cost airlines are making Bucharest accessible, but it's the countryside that's best, offering one of the last true wildernesses in Europe. Retezat National Park, recently declared one of Europe's Protected Area Network of Parks (PAN Parks), is a great example – an ancient woodland home to wolf, lynx and bear and scarcely and tourists. Having to negotiate boat hire from a Romanian fisherman in the watery fingers of the Danube Delta will prove tourism hasn't yet taken off all over the country.
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