Visit Sighisoara

About Sighisoara

Sighișoara is one of the most magical small towns in Europe — the only inhabited medieval fortified citadel still functioning as a real, lived-in town anywhere on the continent, with around 350 people still calling its colourful cobbled lanes home. The whole UNESCO-listed Citadel (1999) sits on a hill 70m above the river, ringed by 14th-century walls reinforced by nine surviving defence towers (originally 14, each maintained by a different craftsmen's guild). The most famous is the 64m Clock Tower (Turnul cu Ceas, 1670), with its painted wooden figures of the days of the week parading through an opening at midnight — climb the wooden stairs for the panorama over the red-tiled rooftops. The colourful Ochre House at Piața Cetății 5, painted yellow, is the birthplace of Vlad III Țepeș ('Vlad the Impaler') in 1431 — the historical Wallachian prince who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula and is now a kitschy themed restaurant. The covered wooden Schoolhouse Staircase, the dramatic Church on the Hill (the highest point in town, with its haunting graveyard), and the small but excellent Citadel History Museum are essential. Don't miss the medieval festival held every July (the largest in Romania) and an evening drink in one of the candle-lit courtyards on Piața Cetății.