Places to see in Transylvania Romania

Romania has evolved into one of the most interesting places to visit in Europe. Boasting diverse and rich architecture and a colourful history, Transylvania in particular attracts visitors from all over the world.

From the piata Victorei, the str. Petru Groza, a broad avenue, returns
to the Liberty Square, from which on the left ascends the str. Uni¬versitatu which crosses the Avram str. to become the Bisericii Ortodoxe str. From the right of this runs a small road to the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were laid out in the nineteenth century as a gift to the town by Count Miko, a Hungarian nobleman.

It is still one of the richest and most charming gardens of its kind in Central Europe. The wide variety of trees are planted over a large area broken up by small ravines, not unlike the narrow chines to be found along the south coast of England. Rhododendrons and wooden bridges over streams reinforce the impression that this could be Bournemouth. Below stands a small but by no means uninteresting museum of botanical specimens.

Back down the str. Republici and left along the road is the large avenue dedicated to the 30th of December. No. 21 is the Ethnographic Museum which contains a selection of Transylvanian peasant costumes, guarded 'by a contingent of rather sleepy old women enjoying their knitting. It is symptomatic of the Romanian approach to tourism that surprise is the most common reaction to a request for a ticket.

Corvin str., on the left, in which is the birthplace of Matthias Corvinus
, once the most sacred of shrines in the days of the Austro¬Hungarian monarchy, leads to Savinesti str., which at the corner of Emil Zola str. houses a former Franciscan monastery. The monastery is still in the hands of a small community but that is only a shadow of the order which, during the eighteenth century, transformed the buildings into a wealthy Baroque foundation.

The Someul River Transylvania

The little canal of the Someul river runs to the left of the monastery towards the town park, at the end of which is the Hungarian opera house, a humble modern building which none the less offers the occasion¬al performance of a Puccini opera which given the resources available is surprisingly good.

The nearby Sport Hotel, despite its heavy architecture, is the most satisfactory place to have dinner before contemplating a visit to the least touched of the seven castles which make up the Saxon settlements in Transylvania, Sighioara (Schiissburg), some miles up the valley, on the road to Sibiu (Hermannstadt).

Schassburg Transylvania

Few places in Transylvania match Schassburg´s charm. Pic¬turesquely situated at the entrance to the Schaas valley, it has a sleepy calm which no other town in the region can match. Here, for the first time, it is possible to see Teuton faces, pale with flaxen hair, among the inhabitants. 'Griiss Gott' rings out more frequently than any other greeting, and the general lack of modern development in the town sug¬gests a world rooted firmly in the past.

From the station, a road leads to the upper town, which with its pinnacles and towers might have inspired The Prisoner of Zenda. The streets of the lower town are a mixture of two-storey nineteenth-century Ringstrasse and the odd inter-war building, while not far from the station is a sturdy Protestant church erected in a pattern-book Neo¬Gothic style in 1887.

Pleasant though all this is, it is the upper town that allows the visitor to appreciate the best of the place. The small square is the best starting point. From here, a winding path takes you under the first of a series of towers and past several rather quaint houses with courtyards dating from about the middle of the seventeenth century. The square at the end of this path contains a large Gothic church which on Sundays resounds to the music of Bach chorales sung in German. The con¬gregation consists invariably of the over-fifties, and the old ladies here could have come from any church in Austria or Germany.

Count Dracula Transylvania


Opposite the west end of the church is a pleasant inn with an upstairs
terrace. A plaque near the doorway boasts that this was the residence of a certain Vlad Dracul, and the square itself is supposed to have once been the site of this medieval tyrant's innumerable executions. Dracula, Prince Vlad V of Wallachia, lived from 1431 to 1476. There is no evidence that he was a vampire, but he was certainly cruel and at least one well known contemporary print depicts him rather nonchalantly eating a meal surrounded by his enemies, who have been impaled on pikes. He was a great warrior and leader and has despite his cruelty retained the honour and affection of the Romanians to this day. This building offers a glass of refreshing wine and is also a restaurant, so that strength can be found for the ascent of the beautiful clock tower, which is also a museum.

The museum contains several curious items dealing with the town's history, including maps, furniture and a collection of chemists' bottles. The view from the top of the tower is splendid, and there are the usual guidelines giving the directions of the world's capitals.

From the tower a number of attractive parallel streets ascend to a hill¬top church. Here there is also a seminary, housed in a rather institutional building, Neo-Gothic in spirit. But the chief object of interest is the fifteenth-century church. It is rarely open and a key must be applied for at the neighbouring seminary. Inside, there are a splendid set of choir stalls and an equally beautiful ciborium, all ascribed to the sons of Veit Stoss of Nuremberg. The atmosphere is Teutonic and contrasts with the warm southern landscape outside.

From here, a path leads through the cemetery where many Saxon names are to be found engraved on the tombstones down the hill through some woods.
If there is time and the weather is as it invariably seems to be here in summer warm and sunny, there is no better way to spend the afternoon than to walk along one of the small country roads to a Saxon village. Owing to petrol restrictions traffic is minimal, and the carts and horses which occasionally pass one by are easily outnumbered by the rather picturesque pedestrians who appear round every corner hurrying to the next village.

Meivdiasch Transylvania

On Sundays, many of the Saxon villages have a wedding at which the amount of colourful costume to be seen will satisfy the most ardent ethnographer. Meivdiasch (Media), a small fortified town ten miles from Schassburg, is a good example, as is Schass (Sarou), only five miles from the town, and Teufelsdorf, on the line to Kronstadt. On a clear day there are few hills which are as beautiful as those to be encountered during such walks and the colourfully decorated houses in these villages are a happy sight. The churches in the German-speaking villages are usually Protestant, and again the words of Luther and the strains of Bach can frequently be heard on Sundays.

Although there are unlikely to be many inns in the villages, the hos¬pitality of these people is unrivalled in Central Europe and schnapps, water, beer and bread will never be refused the traveller, especially if he is on foot. At weddings, a few words of German will guarantee a place at the subsequent banquet, a happy feast.

From Schassburg to Hermannstadt

From Schassburg, the road to Hermannstadt (Sibiu), or a train as far as Karlsburg, from where connections run to Hermannstadt, can be taken.
Karlsburg, or Alba lulia as it is called today in Romania, is an interesting place, although it lacks the picturesque charm of much of the other parts of Transylvania. The Apulum of the Romans, the town was once the residence of the princes of Transylvania, Gabor Bethlen and Gyorgy Rakoczi.

There is a curious museum of antiquities near the station, but the most picturesque and interesting part of the town is the citadel, built on an eminence commanding excellent views of the surrounding country¬side. The fine brick fortifications were constructed between 1716 and 1735 by the Emperor Charles VI and recall the wars between the Austrian empire and the Turks following the relief of Vienna in 1683.

The chief building of merit here is the cathedral of St Michael, built originally in the Romanesque style but substantially enlarged in the Gothic style by Hunyady Janos in 1443-4. The church contains the sarcophagi of Hunyady Janos (d.1456), his son Ladislaus, beheaded in Buda in 1457, and Queen Isabella (d.1556) and her son Sigismund (d.1571).

Adjoining the cathedral is the episcopal palace, designed in the eig~¬teenth century, while to the north there is a military academy bUIlt originally as a Protestant grammar school by Gabor Bethlen and later converted into the series of rather austere barracks to be seen today.

The church of the Jesuits nearby was converted in the nineteenth century into a gunpowder magazine. The view from the bastions, especially from the main arch, now bereft of the fine eighteenth-century coat of arms which once adorned it, but decorated by a modern communist obelisk, is not to be missed on a clear day as the land stretches flatly for
miles from here.

Back at the cathedral, a large late Baroque building nearby contains
the great library which once made up the Batthyaneum, founded by Bishop Batthyany in 1794. Admission is difficult, and sullen staff seem to be everywhere. But the books are beautifully bound. A couple of cafes nearby may tempt the thirsty, but apart from these there is little to prolong our stay in the fallen glories of the Roman Apulum.

Hermannstadt Transylvania Cheap Car hire for Airports

Beyond Karlsburg, the line traverses the plain which was once the scene of the bloody battle in which Hunyady Janos routed the Turks under Mezet Beg in 1442. To the left rise the iron-ore mountains of Transylvania. Eventually, after several long bends, both road and rail reach Hermannstadt, the former capital of Transylvania. The town is undoubtedly one of the most picturesque places in Transylvania, although it has far more bustle to it than Schassburg.

Pleasantly situated on a hill lying on the river Cibinul, the old town is entered from the station by following the road proudly named after General Magheru. This rises with rather dilapidated nineteenth-century houses to the right and left to the church of the Ursuline nuns. This is a Gothic structure erected according to local sources in the fifteenth century. The buttresses of the exterior certainly seem to date from this period but the rest of the exterior is Baroque. Inside, the hexagonal choir and Gothic vaulting have survived the rather lavish alterations of the eighteenth century.

Left down the str. Manegului is the Franciscan church, which also dates from the late fifteenth century. The north aisle facade again has impressive buttresses and Gothic windows. Inside, the altar and west fatyade were rebuilt in the Baroque period, but the sculpture of the Madonna with Child on the high altar is medieval.

Beyond this church lie the old fortifications, which can be examined by turning right along the str. Maternia. The wall, below which can be seen the river, was erected in the seventeenth century as a third ring of fortifications against the Turks. This brick wall has recently been restored, but it remains much as it must have been in previous centuries, while the towers further along seem to have survived successive res¬torations unharmed.