Sighișoara Station

Early departure from Brasov with only one stop at Viscri on the way to Sighisoara.

Viscri's claim to fame is that Prince Charles owns, and restored a house there...oh, and they have a spectacular 13th century church, fortified in 1500.

The church and fortifications are much smaller than Prejmer, as the villagers only fled here in times of attack and lived for short periods, but the church and village are both incredibly well preserved. The chuch has an austere interior with an all wooden gallery, with a stone tower with sweeping views across the village and surrounding farmland.

The Lard Tower in the perimeter wall was used to store the village supplies of cured meats up until the early 1990's, as the village had no electricity for refrigeration. Each family marked their meat with their house number and the tower was opened each Sunday at 7am when families would take their meat supplies for the week. An overseer would ensure they took only their own meat, and the tower wasn't opened again until the following week.

We arrived in Sighisoara eatly afternoon and had lunch in the main square of the citadel before doing a walking tour. Sighisoara features the only continuously inhabited citadel in Romania, with a small number of families still living in the walled city atop the hill overlooking the city. A majority of the city walls, the clock tower and 9 of it's 16 towers are still intact, along with most of the colourful houses.

We walked the citadel again by ourselves in the late afternoon, then wandered through the cemetery (in search of a cache), before returning to the citadel for a late tea - and another papanasi, this time made the traditional way and boiled instead of being deep fried.Read more