The Medieval City - Part 1.

in Pinmapple4 years ago

Not long ago I had the chance to escape from the city and visit a wonderful place called Dracula Daneș Domainthat I've been posting about for days. Scroll down to find the links to my posts if you've missed them.

On the way home we wanted to visit the wonderful medieval city center of Sighișoara, even though we had very little time, far from enough to see everything.

Segesvár Danes Dracula3.jpg

Located in the historic region of Transylvania, Sighișoara has a population of 28,102 according to the 2011 census. It is a popular tourist destination for its well-preserved walled old town, which is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. source

Sighisoara (Schäßburg in German, Segesvár in Hungarian) is a multicultural city, situated in the historic region of Transylvania. According to Wikipedia, 75% of the population is Romanian, 17.6% Hungarian, 5.3% Roma and 1.5% German. Unfortunately most of the Germans left after the communist regime fall.

IMG_20200613_164157a.jpg

We left the car in a nearby parking lot and went on foot. You can go up by car but I guess only in special occasions as there's a gate that opens only if you have a pass. It's a good thing as the medieval city center was not built for cars, there's no space for them. Pedestrians however are welcome.

This is one of the ways up to the old city center. You can choose the stairs as well but be advised, it's hard work, not fun if you're not fit for that.

IMG_20200613_164345a.jpg

As you can see, it was raining at the time of our visit but who cares about a few drops of water when you're at a beautiful place like this, right?

IMG_20200613_164458a.jpg

This is one of the entrances to the medieval city center. The city is situated on a hill for a very good reason, the same reason these gates have grids.

IMG_20200613_164622a.jpg

As an entrance and exit point, this gate was of strategic importance.

IMG_20200613_164622a1.jpg

As it happened in medieval times, these walls, fortresses had these bastions, towers that were occupied by craft masters, this for example was of the the tailors' guild. The grid was lifted and lowered according to the situation.

Please note the cobblestones are still exist. These haven't been replaced thank God! It would loom awful and would be a crime to replace them. These are part of the image, the history this part of the town represent.

IMG_20200613_164521a.jpg

These houses can be found right next to the entrance and I bet that are protected. I was wondering how it is to live in a house like that.

IMG_20200613_164539a.jpg

The date on the iron gate says 1933, however I don't know if that's just the date when the gate was made or of the house as well.

IMG_20200613_164601a.jpg

Inside the gate on the left there is this ethnic art souvenir shop that was closed at the time of our visit, unfortunately. The old city center is full of souvenir shops just like any other tourist attraction place. It's a great way to make some money, I don't have anything against these shops, even though sometimes prices are set to scratch the sky. However I do have a problem with those who are selling kitsch.

IMG_20200613_164638a.jpg

Houses on the other side of the road, not exactly in the best shape as both need renovation work as soon as possible. I love the windows, it looks great from the outside, plus the one on the left has some nice flowers, which makes it more interesting. Somehow I feel sorry for the people owning a house like that as they are not allowed to change the style of the house, which means those windows must be kept as they are.

It is know that those windows are made of a single layer of glass and can't hold the heat. I've seen a solution for that in another town, the new windows were set up behind the old ones, so no one can say anything about damaging the look of the house, but they can still keep the heat inside.

IMG_20200613_164645a.jpg

A house with arcades. That is another interesting building to see.

IMG_20200613_164703a.jpg

The wall is kept as it was back then, obviously must have went through of some renovation work over the years.

IMG_20200613_164708a.jpg

A narrow street paved with cobblestones and cute old houses, all protected by the municipality. even the street lamp is according to those time's style.

IMG_20200613_164714a.jpg

Another narrow street paved with cobblestones in the middle and stones on both sides. Imagine how it must have been when the only vehicle available was the chariot with wooden wheels, pulled by horses. Walking on these streets is like a walk back in time. It feels like you're in a medieval movie.

To make things more interesting, you can participate in the celebration of the city, a festival held each year during summer, when people can dress up in those old folk costumes. There are plays and demonstrations that are really worth to see. During these days the city is filled with tourists from all over the world. This year however there will be no party I believe, which is a huge loss both financially and culturally as well. An event like this can endanger the whole city and not only. As far as I know all the festivals were cancelled, even the biggest ones. Better luck next year, right?

Good thing that individual tourism is permitted so far, so even though we didn't have much time to spend in the historical city center, we're going to go back another time and visit this beauty properly. I'm going to take a bunch of photos and continue my series.

This is the first part, with the road that leads there. Stay tuned, the next part is coming soon.

Check out my latest travel posts:

Sort:  

Shared on Twitter

Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍

Did you know every user has their own profile map?
And so does every post as well!

Want to have your post on the map too?

  • Go to Pinmapple
  • Click the get code button
  • Click on the map where your post should be (zoom in if needed)
  • Copy and paste the generated code in your post (Hive only)
  • Congrats, your post is now on the map!

Thank you!

I never heard of such place, it sure looks like a wonderful city with many stories to tell.

Thanks for the excellent article and beautiful photos! 🤗

Thank you! Stay tuned for the next episode 😉😁

Theré's hardly any one around, not even the locals. Is that because of the rain or lockdown?

Little bit of both. There were people in the city centre but not many. Maybe you'll see some in the next part of the series, which will be out today.

Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Daily Travel Digest #899.

Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!

Become part of our travel community:

I really appreciate it @livinguktaiwan.

Congratulations @erikah! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You distributed more than 39000 upvotes. Your next target is to reach 40000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your board And compare to others on the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Another great milestone.

Well done @erikah 👍🙂