We headed to the old citadel of Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, the "Impaler", best known as Dracula and I must confess the first sight of the city had a fairly strong impact on me as we walked up to the gateway, where the Clock Tower was raised in the 14th century when it became a free town controlled by craft guilds.
We waited in front of he Clock Tower for the it to strike twelve but all we managed to see was one of the wooden figures emerging from the bell-fry taping a drum in a rather subtle and almost inaudible way.
The small narrow streets around the Tower could easily be compared to some of the old city quarters in Lisbon, had they not those bright coloured arches.
Lunch would later be served at the magnificient restaurant located in the three-storey house where Vlad was born, but prior to that we were encouraged to climb up the tower, mainly because of the marvellous views of the city houses below and the forested hills of the Tarnava Mare valley in the distance but also because of the History Museum housed in it, whose
We wandered about in the city after lunch and came across some rather interesting buildings among which was one of the original fouteen towers, named after the guilds who were then responsible for their upkeep - the Turnul Cizmarilor (the Shoemaker's Tower)...
... and the sixteenth century Casa cu Cerb, which had been recently restored.
Some of us ventured up the steep, covered wooden staircase of 175 steps and 29 landings - the Scholar's Stairs, dating from 1642 having reached the 1343-1525 Saxon Church on the Hill surrounded by a Saxon cemetery, both of which which Christian and I briefly visited, before heading back down again in time to get on the bus leaving to Targu Mures.
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