The heartland of the Transylvanian Saxons is the triangle between Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu, known as the 'Alteland', meaning not the old land but the land of the Olt river; the every valley has a row of a smaller valleys off it, and each of these has still smaller valleys opening off it; and each valley has a small settlement guarding its entrance. Each Saxon settlement is a world in itself, with its own church, school and shop, and in fact each home is self-contained with its own baking oven, kitchen garden, wine making equipment and so on. If you have any interest in seeing this culture, now vanishing after 850 years, you can combine this with easy pleasant walking between these villages through the lush, fertile scenery of the Transylvanian plateau. The greatest attraction of the countryside here is not that it is in any way exotic, but that it is exactly how western Europe was until modern agricultural techniques changed it for ever; so the meadows are full of wonderful flowers and butterflies, foxes and deer cross your path, and there are jays, buzzards and other birds in far greater numbers than in the west.
However the greatest attraction for me is the chance to visit the many different fortified churches, also known as 'peasant citadels' or 'village citadels' in the language of communist era tourist leaflets, or as Kirchebuergen in German (as opposed to Buergkirchen which are castle chapels), and to talk to the remaining Saxons about their life there. Although the churches began to be built from the mid 12th Century, in Romanesque and then in Gothic styles, they were not fortified until the second quarter of the 15th Century when the Turks took over from the Tartars as the main threat; those in the east were surrounded with solid walls and towers, while those in the west are simple fortified buildings. There was always a tower for the storage of food, above all sides of speck or bacon fat, in case of a siege. Although the habit of keeping these stores lasted a remarkably long time, it has now virtually died out, but in some villages it has been modified to provide a store for a year's supply of speck for each family. A pig is killed every year before Christmas and the speck is hung in the speckturm, marked with the number of the owners' house, and every Sunday morning the tower is unlocked and a slice taken for the next week. Surplus speck is made into soap.
In addition it is usually possible for visitors to climb the bell tower to see clocks and bells, mostly made in Germany, and to look down at the lovely and distinctive roofscape of the Saxon houses; each house is end-on to the street, with two windows and a large heavy cart gate opening on to the street, and has been extended backwards over the centuries towards the outbuildings behind, so that they form a long thin house one room wide, often without linking doors between the rooms. The courtyard is almost always shaded by vines, and there is always a wine-cellar below. The end facing onto the street bears the owner's initials and the date of building with symbols such as flowers or fruit in paint or plaster; a Romanian-owned house will always carry a cross either painted or on top of the ridge of the roof.
In addition to my real hike from Biertan through the villages south of Sighisoara, I also describe two other minor circuits not far from Brasov which can easily be covered by public transport or by bike.
1. The first of these is from Brasov to the best preserved and most visited of the fortified churches at Hãrman and Prejmer, which can be visited en route to the Eastern Carpathians. Hãrman (Honigberg to the Germans), the rail junction to Intorsura Buzãului, is just ten kilometres from Brasov; unfortunately from the station you have another couple of kilometres walk to the centre of this fairly unlovely village. The church dates from 1293, with 15th Century vaulting and an 18th-Century organ donated by King Ludwig XII of Sweden in gratitude for the first Lutheran service he heard on his way home from exile in Turkey. Unusally there is no gallery other than that required for the organ. In the ring wall, above an ice-cellar, is a chapel with fine frescoes showing late medieval costumes. The ring wall contains food stores for the families of the village (some were demolished in 1803) and unusually there were stores for single men such as the teacher above the aisle of the church, reached by external ladders.
Prejmer (Tartlau) is another seven kilometres further northeast on the DN 10; this is a more attractive village than Hãrman and is clearly better organised for tourism, having the only Saxon church with official opening hours (0900 to 1700, except Sundays) and a porter's lodge. The church dates from the 13th Century with a complex of walls and courtyards begun in 1421 (the year after the first Turkish invasion) and 17th-Century storehouses, with a locally painted altarpiece and an octagonal tower both from 1460-1. Again the only gallery is for the organ, so the men sit to the right of the nave and the women to the left, with children in the north transept and old women in the south transept. However the most memorable sight here is the inside of the ring walls, with 272 storage rooms reached by parallel staircases and galleries. From the top of the stairs over the entrance to the inner precinct you can reach the defence passage with an early version of a Gatling gun, five barrels on one plank which can be loaded and fired in turn.
From here you can continue north or east, or return to Brasov via Sîn Petru (Petersberg), a small Saxon village just six kilometres north of the city which has a 14th-15th Century fortified church and a remarkably lively community with quite a few young people and a Saxon Folk Dance troupe which has toured to Germany and actually returned. ...
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