Driving through Transylvania’s Fortified Saxon villages and exploring Bran Castle

Travel Tips

• The highlight is Sighisoara – the various UNESCO-listed Saxon villages are nice, but the real highlight that has suitable scale is Sighisoara with its citadel full of gorgeous pastel-coloured buildings, fortified walls, cobbled lanes and overlooked by its church on top of the hill.  A truly wonderful village to wander round and I would recommend staying here for 2 nights
• While in Sighisoara, you want to make sure to stay in the Citadel.  We stayed in the Georgius Krauss Guesthouse, which I’d recommend.  Especially if you can stay in the room with the 500+year old wall murals.  It must be the only place in the world that you can see such old paintings whilst not in a tourist site (although the de-humidifier can be a tad noisy).  You can walk around the Citadel Walls, and if you fancy something a bit longer, there is a mini hike up to the Breite Oak Tree Reserve on the plateau just above the town. To get there, head to around halfway along Ana Ipătescu Street and you’ll see a sign for the various hikes (it is also shown on google maps as Via Transilvanica). From there you head up the steep path to the plateau.  Will take around 2.5 hours there and back from the Citadel, and with 160m / 530ft of ascent.  If raining I wouldn’t bother and also don’t go around dusk time as they get bears nearby!
• Saxon Villages – of the UNESCO-listed Saxon Villages, they’re all worth seeing as you will most likely be driving thorough them anyway. The one I most enjoyed was Viscri with its fortified church – it was just so unusual and compact, and allows you to easily imagine what it must have been like living there and trying to defend the place.  Definitely worth an hour or so.  The other village worth seeing is Biertan
• Avoid the highway – there is a highway linking Brasov,Sighisoara and Sibiu.  You’ll have to use it at various points, but it doesn’t add much to the charm of the place.  If possible, try to drive on a route that takes you through the centre.  In particular, the drive from Sighisoara to the start of the Transfagarasan Road near Sibiu via Biertan was beautiful and had us regularly stopping gorping at the views of the distant Transylvanian Mountains
• Bran Castle – when you initially see it, it might not be up to the imposing standard you would be expecting of “Dracula’s Castle”, and also, in vast contrast to all the tat that surrounds it, the castle itself surprisingly doesn’t have that many references to Dracula (“Dracula”, aka Vlad the Impaler, had very little to do with the Castle).  But, it’s nevertheless got its charms.  Firstly, unusually for many castles, the interior is done very well, with almost all rooms of the castle visited as part of the route and you get a real feel for the interior of the place.  Secondly, the history of Queen Mary, a British aristocrat who married the King of Romania and persuaded him to side with the Allies rather than Germany in the First World War, is really interesting to learn about. Definitely worth checking out, but manage your expectations – it ain’t Neuschwanstein Castle on top of a Transylvanian mountain
• Brasov – Brasov’s Old Town is surprisingly pretty and certainly worth an hour or so walking round. We stayed in Vila Katharina which was lovely and would recommend, along with the Prato Restaurant, both of which are in the Old Town
• Transfagarasan Road – if driving back to Bucharest, and doing so between May and September, you simply must experience the Transfagarasan Road.  Labelled “The Best Road in the World” by Top Gear, it is stunning and see more tips here at Driving the Transfagarasan Highway of the Transylvanian Alps