Seven days in Transylvania: three walled towns, and almost no Dracula

Cluj-Napoca, Sighisoara and Brasov, six nights, two short train rides and one castle that plays along.

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Length
7 days, 6 nights
Where you stay
Cluj-Napoca, Sighișoara, Brașov
Places
19 across 7 days
123
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Hungarian kings invited German settlers east in the 12th century to hold the frontier, and the Saxons built walled towns on the plateau and stayed for eight hundred years. Almost all of them left for Germany in 1990, within two years of the borders opening, and the towns they left behind are the reason to come.

This route skips Bucharest entirely. Fly into Cluj, which has cheap direct flights from most of Europe, and out of it again, or on from Brasov if the timing suits. The three stops sit on one railway and no ride between them takes more than an afternoon.

You will see Bran Castle, because it is genuinely good and it is on the way, but the vampire is a marketing decision made in the 1970s. Bram Stoker never came here. What is actually here is better: a Gothic spire over a Hungarian square, a citadel that people still live in, and a Saxon market town with bears in the woods above it.

Highlights

  • A salt mine at Turda, closed since the 1930s and now floodlit a hundred metres underground
  • Sighisoara, the last walled town in Transylvania that never emptied out
  • 175 covered wooden steps up to a Lutheran church and a Saxon cemetery
  • Bran and Rasnov, one road and two very different fortresses
  • Cluj on a weeknight, which is the best evening in Romania

Where to stay

Cluj-Napoca, two nights

The largest city on the plateau and the least visited, which means the best restaurants in Transylvania and none of its queues. Hungarians call it Kolozsvar and about a sixth of the city still speaks Hungarian at home.

Stay between the main square and Piata Muzeului. Everything, including the bars, is inside that five minute radius.

Sighisoara, two nights

By train from Cluj-Napoca, about 111 km.

A walled citadel on a hill with roughly seven hundred people still living inside it, listed by UNESCO because almost nothing in it was ever pulled down.

Sleep up on the hill rather than in the lower town if you can. Having the place to yourself between five in the evening and ten in the morning is the entire reason for the second night.

Brasov, two nights

By train from Sighișoara, about 89 km.

A German market town at the mouth of a mountain pass, with a huge Lutheran church, a long stretch of wall, and the Carpathians rising off the end of the main street.

It is also the base for the castles. Bran and Rasnov are down one valley and a bus goes to both.

Day by day

Day 1 in Cluj-Napoca

Arrive in Cluj, and find the two squares

The airport is 8 km east with a frequent bus. Cluj is organised around one large square with a very large church standing in the middle of it, and a smaller cobbled one two streets north where everybody goes in the evening.

The church is worth doing properly on the first afternoon. It went up through the 15th century, keeps some of its original wall painting, and the spire added in the 1800s is the tallest on any church in the country.

Then walk north for dinner and stay out. This is the best evening on the whole route and it happens every night of the week during term.

  1. 14:30

    Union Square

    Architecture

    The main square, with a baroque palace along the south side and a scrap of excavated Roman street under glass in one corner. Cluj began life as Napoca, and this is the proof.

  2. 15:45

    St. Michael's Church

    Religious

    Gothic, enormous and one of the most important medieval buildings in Transylvania, with 15th century murals surviving in places under the whitewash.

  3. 17:00

    The Museum Square

    Visit

    Two minutes north, the older square, with a Franciscan monastery at the top and the best run of terraces in the city down both sides.

  4. 19:30

    Zama

    Eat

    Transylvanian cooking done properly rather than reverently: sour soups, smoked things, plum everything. Book at weekends.

With more time: The bars off the smaller square and along Strada Potaissa run late every night in term time. One of them is furnished entirely in cardboard, which is what a city with a hundred thousand students produces.

Day 2 in Cluj-Napoca

A hundred metres under Turda, then up the citadel hill

Salt was cut out of the hill at Turda from Roman times until the 1930s, when the mine closed and sat empty for sixty years. What was then done with it is genuinely hard to describe: the main chamber is lit like a film set, there is a Ferris wheel standing on the floor of it, and a lower shaft holds a lake with rowing boats on it.

Minibuses from the Cluj bus station take about 45 minutes. It is around 12 C down there whatever the surface is doing, and the way down is a long staircase or a lift, so take a layer even in August.

Back in the city, give the afternoon to the Transylvanian ethnographic collection and then climb to the citadel above the river for the last hour of light.

  1. 09:30

    Salt Mine of Turda

    Other

    A closed salt mine reopened as something between a museum and a fairground, over a hundred metres underground. Two hours plus travel, and bring a jacket.

  2. 14:00

    Lunch back in the centre

    Eat

    Eat when you get back rather than at the mine, where the options are a car park kiosk and little else.

  3. 15:15

    Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania

    Culture

    Costume, tools, painted furniture and household objects from across the plateau, with an open air annexe of real village buildings a short bus ride north.

  4. 18:30

    Cetățuia Fortress

    Visit

    The Austrian citadel above the river, of which little survives but the ramparts and the view. Go an hour before sunset and the city lays itself out below you.

With more time: With a car, the limestone gorge west of Turda is a two hour walk between vertical walls and a much better full day than the mine on its own.

Day 3 in Sighișoara

East to Sighisoara, and into the citadel

Take a morning train. It runs most of the width of the plateau, through the Tarnava valleys, past fortified church villages you will want to come back for.

Sighisoara's citadel is a walled oval on a hill with the guild towers spaced around it, each named for the trade that built and manned it. Walk the full circuit before you go into anything; it takes half an hour and orients everything else.

The clock tower is the one thing here that charges admission and is worth it: painted wooden figures driven by the mechanism, a small history museum on the way up, and a balcony over the whole valley.

  1. 09:15

    Train to Sighisoara

    Travel

    Cluj to Sighisoara, with several direct departures. Buy at the station on the morning.

  2. 14:15

    Sighișoara Citadel

    Other

    The walled upper town, founded by Saxon settlers in the 12th century and still lived in: cars on the cobbles, children on the square, washing between 16th century houses.

  3. 15:45

    Clock Tower

    Architecture

    The gate tower, begun in the 1300s and rebuilt after the fires, about 60 m to the balcony. Painted figures on the clock face and the best view in town at the top.

  4. 17:15

    Vlad Dracul House

    Historic

    The ochre house where Vlad Tepes was most likely born in the 1430s, while his father was living in exile here. It is a restaurant now; ask and they will show you the upstairs room.

With more time: Walk the walls again after dark. The citadel keeps its lighting deliberately low and there is almost nobody about, which is the closest you will get to seeing it as it was.

Day 4 in Sighișoara

Up the covered staircase, and a slow day

This is the smallest place on the route and today is deliberately the quietest day. A roofed wooden staircase climbs from the top of the walls to the Lutheran church above them, built covered so that schoolchildren could get up there through the winter.

The church at the top is late Gothic and cold, with frescoes the Lutherans whitewashed and the 20th century uncovered again. The graveyard on the slope outside is where the Saxons are buried, and the German names stop around 1990, when almost the whole community left for Germany. It is the quietest history lesson in Transylvania.

Come back down for the third church, then do very little. Day trippers arrive from about eleven and are gone by four, and the citadel after they leave is what you paid for the second night to get.

  1. 09:30

    Covered Staircase

    Other

    175 steps under a wooden roof, climbing from the citadel to the church on the hill. Two minutes if you hurry, which you should not.

  2. 10:10

    The Hill Church

    Religious

    Late Gothic, Lutheran, with recovered wall painting and a crypt below. The Saxon cemetery on the slope outside deserves as long again as the church.

  3. 13:00

    Monastery Church

    Religious

    Beside the clock tower, a late Gothic Lutheran church begun in 1291 by the Dominicans, with a painted ceiling and Anatolian carpets on the gallery fronts.

With more time: With a car, the fortified church villages of Biertan and Viscri are within an hour and are the best thing in this part of the country. Without one, Targu Mures is an hour east by minibus and has extraordinary Hungarian Art Nouveau architecture.

Day 5 in Brașov

South to Brasov, and the Black Church

A couple of hours down the line and you are in the biggest of the three, a walled Saxon town with a mountain standing directly behind it.

The church at the middle of it is the largest Gothic building between Vienna and Istanbul, and the name comes from the soot of the fire that gutted it in 1689. Inside there is a great organ and a collection of Anatolian carpets that merchants brought back over the pass and gave to the church.

Then walk the wall, and spend the evening on the square, which fills at about seven.

  1. 09:30

    Train to Brasov

    Travel

    Sighisoara to Brasov, direct and frequent, arriving in time for lunch. Sit on the right for the mountains as you come in.

  2. 14:30

    The Black Church

    Religious

    A 15th century Lutheran hall church that dwarfs the square around it, blackened by the 1689 fire and rebuilt in baroque inside. The carpet collection alone is worth the entry.

  3. 15:45

    Weavers' Bastion

    Other

    The best preserved stretch of the town wall, with a wooden gallery you can walk and a clay model of 17th century Brasov in the courtyard that makes the whole layout click.

  4. 19:30

    For Sale Pub

    Eat

    A long established pub off the square with keys and notes pinned over every surface, and beer at a third of what Vienna charges.

With more time: Strada Sforii, a couple of streets west of the square, is one of the narrowest lanes in Europe at just over a metre wide and takes two minutes to walk end to end.

Day 6 in Brașov

Bran and Rasnov: the famous one and the good one

Buses to both leave from the Autogara 2 terminal and run through the day; a taxi with an agreed wait costs little more split between two.

Bran was built in 1377 to tax traffic through the pass between Transylvania and Wallachia, and later became a residence for Queen Marie. Everything else about it is a story sold at the gate. Go at opening time, because by eleven the coaches are in and the staircases inside are single file.

Rasnov, on the way back, is the better fortress and gets a fraction of the crowd. It was a refuge rather than a residence, which is why there are streets and a well inside the walls: the townspeople moved in with their livestock whenever the Tatars came.

  1. 09:30

    Bran Castle

    Historic

    Narrow stairs, low doors and a courtyard with a well, on a rock above the road. Buy tickets online to skip the window queue, and ignore the market outside entirely.

  2. 12:30

    Lunch in Bran village

    Eat

    The places directly under the castle are tourist priced. Five minutes down the main road the same soup costs half as much.

  3. 14:00

    Râșnov Citadel

    Other

    A 14th century Saxon hill fort, restored, with an intact ring of walls and a view down the whole Burzenland plain. There is a funicular if the cobbled ramp looks too steep.

  4. 16:00

    The Evanghelical Church

    Religious

    In the village below the citadel, a 13th century church with wall paintings from around 1500. Five minutes, and usually empty.

With more time: If the weather turns, the collection of village houses beside the Bran car park is a great deal more honest about local life than the castle above it is.

Day 7 in Brașov

Up the mountain, then the quarter outside the wall

Leave bags at the hotel and take the cable car first thing. Three minutes to 900 m, and the Saxon street grid is laid out below you with the plain running away behind it.

Then walk fifteen minutes south west into the quarter where Romanians had to live when the walled town was Saxon, and were taxed to come in through the gate. It is where Brasov keeps its Orthodox church and its first school, and almost no visitor gets there.

The train back to Bucharest or the bus to the airport both go from the north side of town.

  1. 09:30

    Tâmpa

    Visit

    The 900 m mountain that ends the town, with a cable car every half hour and a switchback path for anyone who would rather walk it. Go early; the last car down is mid afternoon.

  2. 11:30

    St. Nicholas Church

    Religious

    The first Orthodox church in Brasov, built between 1495 and 1512, Gothic in shape and Baroque in decoration, with a graveyard full of merchant families.

With more time: In the same churchyard, the school where Romanian was first taught instead of Church Slavonic holds a remarkable collection of early printed books for a room that size. Twenty minutes if the train allows.

Before you go

The route and the trains

Cluj to Sighisoara takes roughly three and a half hours, Sighisoara to Brasov a little over two, both on the main line and both direct several times a day. Check the day before rather than assuming: departures are spread unevenly.

Tickets cost a few euros and are bought at the station. Nothing on this route needs booking ahead outside July and August.

Flying into Cluj and out of Bucharest is possible but adds a long day of travel at the end. Flying in and out of Cluj, or in to Cluj and out of Brasov's small new airport, keeps the trip tight.

Where the nights go

Two in each town. Cluj needs two because the salt mine takes a morning; Sighisoara needs two because the point of it is the citadel after the day trippers have gone; Brasov needs two because Bran and Rasnov fill a day on their own.

With nine days rather than seven, put the extra two nights in Sibiu between Sighisoara and Brasov, which adds the best of the Saxon towns and its folk museum.

When to go, and the bears

May, June and September. July and August put coaches at Bran and fill Sighisoara's medieval festival week; winter is genuinely beautiful up here and closes some of what is listed below.

The forests around Brasov hold a serious brown bear population and bears come down to the bins on the edge of town after dark. Do not walk hill paths at night, do not leave food outside, and take any sighting seriously rather than photographically.

What holds this route together is not the castles. It is that three peoples built three towns within a hundred miles of each other, ran them separately for eight hundred years, and left a Gothic spire, a walled citadel and a Lutheran hall church standing in a country that is officially none of them.

Six nights, two train rides, and go up the covered staircase before you leave Sighisoara.

Go deeper on one city

Each of these covers a single stop on this route in its own right.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Do I need to go to Bucharest as well?
Not for this trip. Transylvania is a separate region with its own airport at Cluj and its own history, and adding the capital means a long day on the train each way. If you want Bucharest, do it as a three day stop before or after rather than folding it in.
Is there any real Dracula in Transylvania?
There is a real Vlad Tepes, probably born in Sighisoara in the 1430s, who ruled Wallachia to the south and had a reputation for cruelty that Romanian schoolchildren learn as national resistance. Bram Stoker took the name from him and invented everything else in London. The castle at Bran has almost no connection to either.
Do I need a car?
Not for this route. All three towns are on the railway and the Bran and Rasnov day runs on public buses. A car only becomes worth it for the fortified church villages around Sighisoara, which public transport reaches badly, and for the mountain roads, which are seasonal.
Is six nights enough?
It covers these three towns properly, which is the point. If you have more, add Sibiu between Sighisoara and Brasov for two nights: it is the best looking of the Saxon towns and its open air folk museum is one of the great museums in this part of Europe.