Sighisoara is another Saxon city in Romania. It is one of the most well preserved medieval cities in Europe as war mostly has missed it over time. Also its modest size and relative remoteness means that industrialization and communism did not change the city much either.
It is now very much on the tourism trail for Romania as it is very nicely preserved and a good size to visit in one day. But of all of the places that we have visited on this trip it felt the most touristy. There were more souvenir shops than we have seen in other places. Today the tourists though were mostly Romanian.
The old city is built on a prominent hill and most of the wall is still intact. There are 9 towers remaining of the original 12, and they are all in good shape. So you get a good sense of the city during its heyday in the middle ages.
They also are capitalizing on Dracula. Many people believe that the author of Dracula, based the character on a historical figure from the 1400’s known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was actually born in Sighisoara but only lived here until he was about 4 years old, so he did most of his impaling elsewhere. Nonetheless their are several restaurants, and museums devoted to Vlad and Dracula.
The city historically has been a mix of Germans, Romanians, and Hungarians and has passed back and forth between the Austro-Hungarian empire and Romania. That mixed heritage is reflected in the three churches in the city, one Lutheran for the Germans, one Orthodox for the Romanians, and one Catholic for the Hungarians ( and a few of the Germans.)
There were several weddings going on today and we saw wedding parties at both the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
Climbing down from the top of the town we came upon a long covered staircase. The Lutheran Church used to also have the main school in town next to it. The covered stairway allowed the students to quickly climb the hill to the top of the town no matter the weather.
Having come down the stairs from the top of the town we were both looking for a little break. We spotted a sign for a wine shop that looked like it had an interesting cave, and we stuck our head in. The shop was beautiful and the owner asked us if we wanted to try a tasting of the local liquor called Pilinka. We both said sure without asking the price. The Pilinka was excellent but the cost shocked us both. He did tell us the cost after we had agreed and before he served it, but neither one of us wanted to lose face so we sat down. For what we paid for 5 shots of Pilinka each, we could have had a nice 3 course meal with a glass of wine.
When we came out of the wine cellar we noticed that the afternoon thundershowers were starting to build again. We figured we had about an hour before they would hit so we decided to head back to François.
We weren’t in a hurry and Ton had heard there was a Lidl near the campground so we headed there. Just as we returned to François there was some spattering of rain. We sat inside and listened to thunder all around us, but as often happens with thunderstorms it was probably raining heavily all around us, but we only got a few drops where we were.
Our plan was to head back into town in the evening after the rain blew thru. But once we got back into François we both got comfortable and the walk back into town never happened.
