I am travelling to Cluj-Napoca in October with my Partner for 3 days.
We’re not sure of what to do – but like the idea of staying in a rural homestay for perhaps the first two nights – then the final night in Cluj (due to the early flight)
We’d like to see a castle – perhaps Bran?
Can anyone help - will hire a car if we need to but would prefer not to travel all the time.
Pete
Bran isn't very close to Cluj, but you could visit it nonetheless if you really want to, even without renting a car: take a train from Cluj to Brasov (it's 5 1/2 - 7 hours away so you might want to use a night train; check timetables on infofer.ro), then go by bus to Bran (~40 minutes away).
If you do go to Bran you could easily find a rural guest houses to spend a night in, they're extremely common there (check a list here).
There are of course other places you could go to, like the Hunyad castle in Hunedoara (~4 hours away from Cluj by train+bus).
if you intend to go to bran and use night train as mention:
you have 2 night train the one that will be fine for you are train nr' [ACCELERAT 1632]
dep' from cluj at 23:31 and arr' to brasov at 05:00 next morning.
return tickets at first class 2 bed cabin will cost you 177 lei .
bran is not very interesting. a much more beautiful castle is peles castle! which is also near brasov.
In Cluj we stayed at Piccola Italia, a very reasonably-priced hotel that we loved. The staff is extremely helpful with luggage, information, etc. It's located about 10-15 minute walk from city center, in a quiet residential neighborhood.
In the Apuseni area just west of Cluj are many villages where homestays are available. We stayed a full week in Sancraiu, which has many homestays. It's a small village, where your main activities would be experiencing local life and hiking around. These villages lack restaurants, and other amenities, so you either buy food at a store, or are provided by meals with your hosts. The Apuseni area is about 1 hour west of Cluj, the largest town in the area is Huedin. There is a train to Huedin, and you'd need to arrange transportation to the village you intend to stay if you don't rent a car.
One source of information is: www.greenmountainholidays.ro.
We stayed at Hotel Agape, tel. +40 (264) 406 523 and payed RON 279 for a nice and spacy twin room. The hotel also have six restaurants, and are run by Hungarian locals. So this is a safe choice, and located in a fairly quiet street just off the main square in the city centre.
Also, I would rather visit Sighişoara (pronounced sigiˈʃo̯ara; German: Schäßburg; Hungarian: Segesvár; Latin: Castrum Sex) than Bran castle. Sighişoara is only 3 hours and 41 minutes away from Cluj-Napoca by direct train, and is a wonderful old city on UNESCO's world heritage list, and by the way the city where Vlad Ţepeş (the infamous impaler...) was born. Here, we stayed at the Burg Hostel, tel. +40 (265) 778 489, a dirt cheap and still a surprise of an accomodation inside the old town. I'm not a fan of hostels, but this place offers very nice breakfasts in the courtyard and clean rooms. The only issue was that you'll need to bring your own towels and shampoo for the shower, but I believe you can rent/buy that as well in the reception.
In Cluj-Napoca you can also sleep at Jonathan Apartments http://www.cazareclujieftina.ro/en</a>, there is also a virtual tour on the site to see the apartments, good conditions and much cheaper than hotel
Hey, perhaps, for your next visit you can also check out http://www.hotelincluj.com/. Hope this helps!