Lively if not jaw-dropping in beauty, Târgu Mureş - with its nearly even Hungarian and Romanian populations, as well as a sizeable Roma population - offers a different slice of Transylvania, past and present. Buildings in its centre sport a more colourful, even flamboyant, Habsburg spirit, with tiled rooftops of government buildings jutting over heroic statues and floral paint-jobs in well-maintained interior spaces. In July 2006 budget airline Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com) began service from Budapest, so more travellers are likely to treat this friendly central Transylvanian town as a hub. It's well worth poking about for a day.