In Brasov, most hotels are in the $30-to-$70 range; one cheaper bet is Aro Sport (Strada Sf. Ioan 3, 68/478-800), where doubles with shared bath are 420,000 lei ($14). Nearby Sighisoara has more options, so it makes a better base. The Hotel Rex (Strada Dumbravei 18, tel/fax 65/777-615, hotelrex@netsoft.ro) offers 28 clean, spacious units with TVs, refrigerators, and large bathrooms for 490,000 lei ($16) single and 590,000 ($20) double, including breakfast. It's a 15-minute walk or quick public bus ride (10,000 lei/33cents) to the main sights. More atmospheric is the seventeenth-century Casa cu Cerb (Stag House), adorned with heads and antlers and housing a new inn/restaurant called Messerschmitt (tel/fax 65/774-625, info@er-messerschmitt-s.ro). It has ten Ikea-furnished rooms (all with bath) for 420,000 lei ($14) single and 840,000 lei ($28) double. The restaurant's brick-vaulted ceilings form a canopy for crisp white linens and forest-green upholstered seating, where diners feast on pork in paprika sauce with dumplings for 59,600 lei ($2) and clatite (pancakes with jam) for 11,400 (38:).

You can also dine at Casa "Vlad Dracul" (773-304) in the Impaler's very birthplace. Diners ascend stairs past a fresco of the town dominated by a mega-Vlad looming like a malignant Gulliver, then sit in tall, carved wooden chairs and dine on omelettes with ham and mushrooms for 25,000 lei (83:) and pork cordon bleu 89,000 ($3). The stakes on the wall, they say, are for decorative purposes only.

To really soak up local culture, consider village homestays. Through ANTREC Romania in Bucharest (tel/fax 1/223-7024, antrec.ro), you can arrange delightful guesthouses such as Cheile Gradistei in the Carpathian foothills village of Moeciu de Jose convenient to Bran Castle and Brasov on a public bus line. Rooms are spotlessly clean, and some have private verandas with breathtaking views. Doubles with bath run 750,000 lei ($23) and 600,000 lei ($20) without. A stream runs through its chalet-style restaurant, where beef stew or meat-stuffed cabbage rolls are 75,000 lei ($2.50).

Maramures: Still Dacian after all these years

Inhabitants of the northern portion of Transylvania are of Dacian descent, culturally distinct from the remainder of the province. Here in Maramures, village customs and crafts like gaily embroidered costumes, pointed footwear, and intricately carved wooden gates have been handed down for centuries. Horse-drawn wagons go clipping by, loaded down with animals and people heading to market, horses' bridles bobbing with orange tassels for good luck. Village markets are a cacophony of cowbells, clinking bottles of palinka, bleating goats, and folk music spewing from boomboxes. From Sighis-oara to the region's capital, Baia Mare, the train takes five hours via Cluj (first-class 343,000 lei/$11.45). Explore villages like Birsana, with its beautiful monastery, and Surdesti, with the world's tallest wooden church, all by public bus (autobuz) for 15,000 lei (50cents) per 30 miles or in a rental car (gas: 63,967 lei/$2 a gallon).

Twenty miles from Baia Mare, don't miss one of Romania's most fascinating sites, the Cimitirul Vesel (Merry Cemetery) of Sapanta, a 67-year-old garden of carved wooden crosses painted vibrant blue and bearing first-person epitaphs with sometimes poignant, sometimes amusing tales of the deceased ("I worked with sheep, but a bad Hungarian cut my head from my body. I curse this man").

Maramures is also the perfect area to try a homestay; otherwise, good bets include Motel Siesta, in Sighetu Marmatiei (4925 Sighetu Marmatiei Avram Iancu 42 Maramures, 62/311-468, fax 62/311-253, siesta.mm@alphanet.ro), 450,000 lei ($15) single and 600,000 lei ($20) double, with breakfast. All 16 rooms have baths with stall showers, and the hotel restaurant serves filling dishes such as smoked pork with beans (43,900 lei/$1.46) or chicken with rice (27,700 lei/92cents). Hotel Cerbul (Borsa Complex, 62/344-199), with singles at 560,000 lei ($17) and doubles at 700,000 ($23), including breakfast, is a quaint ski resort with 29 bath-equipped rooms and a restaurant overlooking the mountains. It dishes up roast beef for 30,800 lei ($1) and pork with mushrooms for only 22,450 lei (75cents).

Moldavia: Paint your monastery

Moldavia province is best known for the UNESCO World Heritage Sites found in its northern region, Southern Bucovina. The fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century Orthodox monasteries (admission 20,000 lei/66cents each) were erected by Stephen the Great and his son, their outsides painted with biblical scenes to teach religion to the illiterate. Miraculously, the images still survive, and the most famous monastery, Voronet, dubbed the "Sistine Chapel of the East," is a veritable symphony of color, one wall displaying a masterful Last Judgment, vibrant in "Voronet blue." The six monasteries, as well as Romania's finest citadels, built four to six centuries ago to withstand Ottoman invasion (admission 10,000 lei/33cents each), are connected by public bus (10,000-15,000 lei/33cents-50cents) from the region's now industrialized main town, Suceava.

Southern Bucovina abounds with charming options for eating and sleeping. My favorites in Suceava are the ten-room Casa Calin (Strada Horia 1, Vama, 94/549-929, bucovina.casa.calin.ro), where singles (450,000 lei/$15) and doubles (660,000 lei/$22) include breakfast and private bath; the delightful proprietors will also cook dinner for a few bucks. Casa Elena (Voronet 8, 30/230-651, fax 30/230-968, webmaster@casaelena.assist.ro) offers 22 doubles at 650,000 lei ($22), all with private bath. There are great mountain views from the indoor or al fresco restaurant, where spit-roasted meats are 80,000 lei ($2.65).

Romania-mania!

Get more information from the Romanian National Tourist Office (14 E. 38th St., New York, NY 10016, 212/545-8484, fax 212/251-0429, romaniantourism.com), or online at beautifulromania.com, mtromania.ro, romaniaguide.com.

Tarom Romanian Airways (212/560-0840, tarom.digiro.net) flies direct from the U.S.; a round-trip coach ticket from New York to Bucharest costs $350 to $650, depending on time of year. British Airways (800/247-9297, britishairways.com) and Austrian Airlines (800/843-0002, aua.com) are among several European airlines connecting to Bucharest. Fares from New York range from $481 to $935. For packages, contact CMB Travel in Bucharest (tel./fax 1/210-5244, cmbtravel.ro). Once in Bucharest, you can get good rental-car rates from Absolut Rent A Car (1/330-4255). When calling Romania from the U.S., first dial 011-40.