This essay focuses on the representation of Eastern Europe in Claudio Magris's Danubio (1986). As has been demonstrated by recent critical studies, Eastern Europe is more a cultural concept than a geographical designation. The region has often been described through the use of a number of specific tropes, literary topoi, and images, which have contributed to its being perceived as fundamentally different from the West. Eastern Europe has often appeared - in particular in travel narratives written by Westerners - as a negative reflection (or an inevitably flawed imitation) of its Western counterpart. Some of these tropes are still present in many Westerners' accounts of the region. This essay examines Magris's depiction of Romania - the last stage of the narrator's Danubian journey - which, even though Danubio remains a work of a highly critical and open-minded observer, contains a number of topoi characteristic of the discourse on the West/East division.