Sibiu .Traveling past the Carpathians through the Red Tower Strait, leaving behind what foreigners refer to as Wallachia, a visitor enters a whole new world -- Transylvania. The first thing to notice is the architecture. Saxon villages feature stone houses with shingle roofs, perfectly lined up along the street, and with back courtyards. It is a tradition associated with Central Europe, and entirely different from that found elsewhere in Romania. The city of Sibiu has a distinctive medieval atmosphere. If not for the cars in the street or the fancy shops, it would be easy to imagine one has journeyed back in time. Lying at the foot of the Fagaras Mountains, Sibiu has stood sentry at the gate of this legendary province for nine centuries. First attested in a document written in 1191 by Pope Celestin III, Sibiu was once known as Hermannsdorf, then -- after gaining the rank of civitas in 1366 -- as Hermannstadt. In 1919, one year after Transylvania returned to the mother country, the name of the city officially became Sibiu. Loaded with history, the city that withstood a siege led by Sultan Murad II himself in 1438 boasts a myriad of superlatives: here opened the first hospital in Romania, the first documented school, the first museum, the first pharmacy and the first paper mill. The first book in Romanian was printed in Sibiu, and it is also the place where the worlds first experiments with rockets took place. It would take whole pages to list all the beauties the city offers. The best way is to discover them yourself and enjoy every surprise you may find around the corner, raising the dust of these ancient streets just as countless generations have done since the 12th century.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 07:04:29 +0000
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