After visiting the fascinating village of Viscri, we arrived in Sighișoara.
There, we slept in a really beautiful place, Casa Savri. The owner of the hotel told us that just ten years back all the construction was just ruins, and that they repaired it from scratch, transforming it in a little gem, then he also showed us some old pictures of the previous construction. On the walls there were, also, all ancient tools used for farming, smithing and so on..
Very, very interesting!
We then went for a walk in the historical centre of Sighișoara. The old city is placed on a hill that dominates the landscape below, and in my opinion is the most beautiful city of Transylvania, due to its medieval architecture which seems to be untouched from centuries and the colourful houses which are around every corner walking through the stone-paved alleys.
In its majesty you can see the most famous tower (of many) of this city: the Clock Tower. The advise is to visit it during sunset (or sunrise) and standing there until the blue hour, if you want to truly see at its best one of the most representative symbols of Transylvania.
Plus, walking at night through the alleys, will surely help you immerse in a medieval fairy time, ruled by old legends of knights, castles and transylvanian monsters, like the most famous, which in Sighișoara was born, Count Dracula.
Sighișoara from above
The day after we went to Sibiu, 100km away from Sighișoara.
There we explored the city a bit, going around the nice historic centre, stopping to admire the giant Piata Mare and just wandering around it admiring the medieval constructions with their peculiar roofs, that have “eyes”, due to the form of the top window.
Once we woke up in Sibiu, we decided to head over Hunedoara.
To be honest I didn’t look on the internet for it and didn’t informed about the city. I was primarily interested in Corvinilor Castle over there.
The fate wanted that in Hunedoara we could fine just the castle of our interest. A big, industrial, grey city that used to be rich during the USSR period for their iron factories.
The castle, which was of great beauty itself, was pitifully surrounded by old, run down skeletons of dismisses factories and other horrible constructions.
But I guess that the common denominator in a trip is to visit everything and trying to understand the culture and costumes of that place you are visiting, so let’s just go over it.
After visiting the Corvinilor Castle, beautiful on the outside, nice but nothing really special on the inside, we headed back to Sibiu, to pass the last night over there.
We passed the last day of out trip before going back home traveling towards Curtea de Arges, a little town at the base of Carpathian mountains.
After 3 hours driving, we just stopped there to get loose of our stuff in the hotel and headed to the Poenari Castle, the true castle of Vlad Tepes (Count Dracula), driving through the famous Transfăgărăşan road, that cuts in half the carpathian mountains built in the ‘70 by romanian dictator Ceausescu.
Due to heavy snow the road was closed in its most beautiful part, but we managed to drive the first 50km of it arriving at Poenari Castle.
Pity for us, the path to the castle was closed and opened just twice a day. This because of the growing bears population, even though we didn’t managed to see not even one!
Anyway I was able to fly my drone to get some picture: Even then, after few shots the drone app alerted me about strong winds, and to fly down asap!
Poenari Castle
Before going back, we arrived to Lake Vidraru, from where it was possible to see snowy Carpathians and Mount Negoiu.
Mount Negoiu from Lake Vidraru
On the road back to the hotel there were some of these little chapels. I was just able to stop once and going inside one: Colours were so vivid, even though it seemed abandoned.
Romania was overall a good trip for us.
Seeing Transylvania with all of its fascinating Saxon medieval architecture was a nice jump in the past.
Driving through the countryside and forests, visiting old castles and eating romanian dishes was just what we were searching for!
On the other hand, seeing contradiction such as display of wealth with gold and other wealthy stuff and, on the other hand, seeing poverty in rural places, watching sagging houses, conditions of poor hygiene and even not paved roads in some cases (e.g Viscri), strenghten our hearts.
In the end, I would surely advise to go to Romania. This place needs to be discovered for everything it has to offer!