Romania

Romania probably has the best-preserved nature in the European Union. The Carpathians, which arc across the country, hold the largest European populations of brown bear, wolf and lynx outside Russia, alongside virgin beech forests listed as World Heritage. In Transylvania, traditional hay meadows survive that break world records for plant diversity in small areas, maintained by a low-intensity agriculture that has vanished from the rest of the continent. To the east, the Danube delta forms the largest continuous wetland in Europe and contains the most extensive reedbed on the planet: Dalmatian and great white pelicans, pygmy cormorants, herons and more than three hundred bird species breed there. Retezat, protected since 1935, was the country's first national park and keeps a hundred or so glacial lakes.