We woke to the drumming of rain on the window pane – looks like our luck with the weather has changed. It was time to put money in the parking meter, so it seemed easier to get the car, drive up the hill, load our luggage and find a restaurant outside the citadel for breakfast. Exploring Sighisoara’s quaint streets, walls and towers was not as appealing in a downpour. The rain lightened to a drizzle as I walked down the hill to the car; the guard indicated that I had to pay one hour of parking – 2.5 leu or about 67 cents. I drove back up the hill careful of the sharp, tight turns; we checked out (the room cost $38), loaded our luggage and drove to the newer part of the city. We quickly found a hotel restaurant that served breakfast – strange assortment of food, more expensive than any meal we’d eaten in country to date and reminiscent of 1930’s speakeasy. We pocketed the oranges we could not eat and began our drive. Our plan was to visit the fortified church, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in Biertan.
Sighisoara is a small municipality with a population just over 20,000 so within five minutes we were outside the city limits . The terrain became rural quickly and we shared the road with locals driving horse carts.
We drove for about 30 minutes without seeing any signs for Biertan; checking the GPS we saw that we had mistakenly selected Bradeni rather than Biertan from the menu. No worries we thought, Bradeni has a fortified church; although not a World Heritage site and likely not as well kept, it would nonetheless curb our curiosity about fortified churches. We drove through the village, spotted a sign pointing to the left with a symbol that looked like a fort with a church steeple, crossed a small river and followed a bumpy, dirt track that paralleled farmers’ fields. We drove another 15 minutes and saw nothing. Cognizant of our time and the 5 hour drive back to Bucharest, we turned around; as we approached the main village street, we saw the fortified church right in front of us. Amazing that we had missed it! The church was not well preserved, nor open inside but we walked the perimeter and then explored inside the walls.
We were thrilled to find a fortified church. These structures are part of the unique heritage of early Transylvania Saxon culture. Given the frequency of invasion, the Saxons that settled here needed to build fortifications to protect themselves. The church was the epi-center of the village and was typically built of stone and brick. It made sense to use and further fortify this well constructed place of worship for protection against invaders. So the church was typically built on easily defensible land and encircled by sturdy walls to safely shelter people and their livestock during an attack. Openings in the outer walls and in the turrets of the church enabled villagers to participate in their own defense, using weapons like bows and arrows and later guns; even women and children were enlisted to dump boiling water or oil and drop rocks on the enemy’s heads.
As we walked back to the car, we spotted a pair of storks finessing their nest atop a pole. The white stork is common in rural Transylvania, nesting near marshes and pastureland on top of walls, poles, buildings and even church belfries. Nests are made of sticks and are between 2.5-5 feet in diameter. Given the time of year, it was likely that the female had already laid her eggs.
We continued driving south. Our plan was to drive to the town of Fagaras, stop for lunch and then retrace our route through Brasov, Azuga, Sinaia, over the mountains and into Bucharest by 6 pm with enough time to change for dinner. As we passed through the village of Netus, we saw another fortified church. Once again, the church was locked but we walked around the perimeter taking pictures.
We drove another 20 minutes to the town of Dealu Frumos and found another fortified church. This building was in much better condition and appeared to allow visitors to enter, but once again the building was locked. Darn, now that we realized some churches had restored interiors, we wanted to see the inside of one.
A quick Google search told us that there are over 150 fortified churches still standing in Transylvania in various stages of repair – some still used by communities as places of worship; others as tourist attractions. We found another great church in the town of Merghindeal, again not open. Walking around the complex, we marveled at the different designs and means of fortification of these structures. Merghindeal church, in particular, showed the large number of defensive openings in the walls of the complex.
Although continually overcast, the rain seemed to stop every time we discovered a fortified church. As we drove towards the Carpathians, the dark clouds formed a lovely backdrop to the snow capped summits.
We noticed dark complected women in colorful flowing skirts and bandannas walking along the roadside near some of the villages we passed. Often they flagged us down to beg for food or money. These were Romani, or commonly called Gypsies. I was aware that the Romani were an itinerant people but until doing some research, did not realize that they were an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that originated from what is today northern India. As we entered the village of Cincu, we passed a Romani woman walking with her daughter, stopping to exchange words with a woodcutter.
Following another fortified church sign in Cincu, we stopped near a gated grassy churchyard with several buildings in front and the church in the back. The area looked maintained and we hoped this would be our chance to go inside a fortified church.
As we walked towards the churchyard gate, the Romani woman approached us asking for food for her daughter. We gave her little girl one of our leftover breakfast oranges and they happily posed for a picture.
We continued exploring the church grounds. This church had much larger windows covered with heavy metal grating. It appeared that the building was still in use but was once again locked.
Walking back to the car, we watched the woodcutter intently focused on splitting logs; his clothing, tools and demeanor were reminiscent of a scene right out of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.
Continuing on towards Fagaras and lunch, we passed our sixth fortified church around a bend in the road – we were not in a town or village that was named on the GPS or Google maps. We stopped for a quick picture.
As I photographed the church, a lovely white and brown cat sprinted by, then stopped to watch me from a nearby field. Throughout my travels, I’ve noticed that some countries are dog countries – Peru, India and Bhutan come to mind, with lots of dogs in public spaces but Romania is definitely a cat country – we saw cats, some pets, some wild, everywhere we went; in town squares, windowsills, cafes, churchyards, fields.
As we entered the town of Cincsor, we once again saw the fortified church symbol. Laughing that we had worried for naught about not finding any churches, we decided to make this our last stop. The seventh stop was a charm, because not only was the church well maintained, but it was still an active church. Much to our delight, a janitor saw us peering in through the gate and invited us in to tour not only the interior of the church but the courtyard and towers as well.
Despite its Gothic exterior, the interior of the church was contemporary. Today the church is the place of worship for an active Lutheran parish, St. Nicholas. We climbed to the choir loft for a top down view of the interior.
Rather than religious imagery, the pictures on the walls depicted real people helping and supporting each other. We could not translate the messaging on the banners, but the whole feel of this church was very progressive, in stark contrast to the traditional fortification in which it was housed!
Outside, we were able to climb via wooden ladder into one of the watch towers that had been renovated. The turret that in earlier centuries had enabled villagers to see invaders approaching from a distance, afforded us a beautiful panoramic view of the village rooftops, green pastures and snow capped mountains.
From our top down view in the tower, we observed the double wall that protected the church. Signage that we found in English indicated that a chapel was first built on site in the late 13th century but was gradually fortified step by step in the 14th through 16th centuries; fachwerk structures were built, the church was reinforced with buttresses, the bell tower was heightened and strengthened and walls with four corner defense towers were constructed. At one time, Cincsor Kleinschenk was surrounded by a moat. Security and protection from invaders was a high priority during this time.
Today with the need for protection no longer paramount, the grounds inside the walls have been repurposed as gardens; the flowers and foliage were in lovely bloom and accented the ancient stone walls.
Time was flying by and we were beginning to overdose on fortified churches, so we drove directly to Fagaras. (We actually bypassed two more churches enroute!) Maybe it was the cloudy sky and drizzle, maybe it was that we were hungry, but downtown Fagaras was a drab urban center, congested, with vendors hawking flowers and produce; there were not many choices of restaurants so we eventually settled on a small diner for pizza. A soccer team arrived right before us, so service was slow and it took about 90 minutes to order, eat and pay. The only redeeming feature of Fagaras was the golden domed Orthodox Church, St. John the Baptist, in the central square; given our tight schedule, we didn’t have time to peak inside.
It was 2:30 pm and per the GPS, we had a three hour drive to our hotel in Bucharest. It began to rain hard which slowed us down somewhat but we made good timing and only stopped once to switch drivers. Couldn’t resist taking a shot of this sheep hunkered down in the rain. The drive back through Brasov, Azuga, Sinaia and even over the mountains went smoothly and even when approaching Bucharest by highway, we were surprised at how little traffic we encountered. We had been warned about Bucharest traffic, but we were less than 5 km from our hotel and so far so good!
The minute we exited the highway, everything changed. We were in a huge traffic jam; cars blocked the intersections, traffic circles were congested and pedestrians kept walking in front of crawling cars. I was driving but needed my colleague to help me watch for pedestrians and traffic lights (not mounted overhead but on sides of streets often making them difficult to see) as well as directing me as to which lane of the 4-5 lane traffic circles I needed to be in based on GPS directions. It took us over an hour to drive the 5 km from the freeway exit to our hotel; it was nearly 6:30 pm by the time we reached the lobby of the Athénée Palace Hilton. I thought my harrowing journey was over but the doorman emerged and told me I had to go around the corner and park in a lot across the street. That took another 10 mins. Needless to say, I rushed to my room to change, freshen up and meet our group for a 7 pm dinner. I now classify Bucharest traffic as some of the worst I’ve experienced in the world!