Oradea, Romania

Oradea is a city of roughly 200,000 people in western Romania, set on the Crișul Repede river just 10 kilometers from the Hungarian border. Its central Union Square is framed by the largest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in the country, with facades shaped by architects from Budapest's Ödön Lechner school. A short walk away stands the Roman Catholic Basilica, completed in 1752 and ranking as the largest baroque church in Romania. Fifteen minutes' walk from it sits the 1,000-year-old Oradea Fortress, whose walls enclose layers of medieval and Renaissance history. What lies beneath those fortifications tells a more complicated story.