Romania - Sighisoara

Founded by German craftsmen and merchants known as the Saxons of Transylvania, Sighisoara is a fine example of a small, fortified medieval town which played an important strategic and commercial role on the fringes of central Europe for several centuries.

Sighisoara, one of the most beautiful towns in the heart of Transylvania, looks today much as it did 500 years ago. This medieval town was also the birthplace of Vlad Dracula - nicknamed Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) - ruler of Walachia from 1456 to 1462. It was he who inspired Bram Stoker's fictional creation, Count Dracula. His house is just one of the many attractions here. Others include the Church on the Hill, with its 500–year old frescos; the Church of the Dominican Monastery, renown for its Renaissance carved altarpiece, baroque painted pulpit, Oriental carpets and 17th-century organ; and the Venetian House, built in the 13th century.

Among the most striking attractions is the 210-feet high Clock Tower (Council Tower), built in the 14th century, where each day a different wooden figure emerges from the belfry on the stroke of midnight. The tower was raised in the 13th and 14th centuries when Sighisoara became a free town controlled by craft guilds, each of which had to finance the construction of a bastion and defend it during wartime. The fortification walls, built in the 14th and 15th centuries, were up to 50-feet high and featured 14 defense towers. Most of the old structure s and 9 of the defense towers can still be admired today.