As you probably know by now (or at least the 3 people who read this with any consistency), I decided to forgo my trip into eastern Romania, the Republic of Moldova, Transdenister and Odessa in the Ukraine (thereby eliminating my chances at meeting my future wife as my friend Terry predicted), so that I might be able to travel slower, spending more time in Transylvania and Istanbul, before flying to Capetown on the 22nd. I stopped back in Baia Mare to thank Rada for the help in setting up my journey into Maramures on my way through to Cluj and Transylvania. I had been hoping to send her a note, but had no internet in the country side (which was a blessing!). As luck would have it, her colleague Alexandra was driving to Cluj the following day, so I stuck around another night and drove with Alexandra.

All of the younger people I talked to really love Cluj. Probably because most of them went to college there. It is the major university town in Romania. I thought Cluj was OK... just OK... I imagine if I had gone to college there it would mean something a lot different to me (I am sure there are a lot of people out there who aren’t nearly as enamored with Blacksburg, Virginia as I am...). But I had a few nice nights there, spending time with Alexandra, Maria and Radu, whom I had met in Baia Mare. It was a fun place to be for the celebration of Romanian independence, December 1. There were lots of parades and concerts and fireworks, and people were in from all over the surrounding area to celebrate. I was looking forward to getting into Transylvania though.

I caught a 4:00 train on Sunday evening , headed to the Saxon village of Sighisuoara. It was a very crowded train, as many people were traveling home after the holiday weekend. Like many Romanian trains I’ve traveled on, this one was very very slow... There was a group of three college students sitting next to me on the train. They were traveling from Alba Iulia, the city where the new Romania independence was drafted, and ground zero for the independence celebrations. We commiserated over the slowness of the trains. They told me that when traveling east/ west in Romania, you can always count on a two hour delay... guaranteed. So I guess I should count myself lucky as we pulled into Sighisuoara only and hour and a half late!

I really enjoyed Sighisuoara. It is the kind of place you imagine when you think of Transylvania... or at least the kind of place I imagined. A fortified city on a hill with lats of spires and towers. Narrow cobbled streets leading up through imposing archways, winding past crumbling houses. As snow fell, this is the Transylvania I pictured in my head before coming on this trip. Sighisuoara is a Saxon village. The Saxons are Germans who were sent to this part of Romania in the 1400’s in an effort to colonize the area. The Saxon’s brought with them their customs, traditions and construction techniques, that still remain today (although many of the Saxon’s returned to their original homes in Germany after the fall of communism in the early 1990’s).

As you might imagine, the locals living here weren’t so thrilled to have these foreigners take their land and establish their own communities, so they fought. In defense, the Saxons developed a very specific kind of city/ fortress. The church and the residences were all protected by the massive masonry fortifications: walls, gates and towers that protected the inhabitants.

Because it was a self sufficient community, there were all the different trades, or guilds. There was the blacksmith, the coppersmith, the leather workers, the weaver, etc... all these groups were represented by their guilds, and the guilds took responsibility for defending the fortress. The protective walls have a series of towers strategically located to ward off the threat of invasion, and each guild was responsible for the construction and defense of the different towers. I found this all really fascinating. There was no army for defense, this was a community, therefor the inhabitants had to band together to protect themselves. You could tell the success of the trade by the location and quality of their tower. For instance, the Tailor’s guild was thriving in Sighisuoara, thus their tower was located on the prominent northern end of the fortress overlooking the river and featured multiple turrets and a covered stairway into the tower. I am guessing it was the establishment of the guilds that led in some way to our current day unions.

I made reservation in a B&B within the fortress. As it is the off season, there was some construction going on in the house to prepare for the coming winter holiday, so i was put up in an apartment in a 500 year old house across the street, backing up the citadel that stands over the city. It was a great base for exploring. Next to the citadel, containing the school and the church, there is the cemetery. All of the graves were German, with names like Shoemacher, Heinz and Wenrich... it was very strange, here in the middle of Romania, to find this dense German enclave. I joined the family for breakfast every morning, and before leaving, the husband cleaned out a water bottle and filled it with him homemade wine from the vines growing in the backyard.

I had a nice time strolling the upper city, the fortified one, as well as the lower city and the surrounding hills. As Sighisuoara grew, there was just not enough room within the walls of the fortified city, so the village grew around the base of the hill. Now the main commerce takes place below, the fortress acting as a kind of working museum. I imagine in the summer the place has a very Disney feel to it, but here in mid December it was a great place to be.

Like a lot of stories you’ve probably heard, there are a lot of Gypsies in Romania. One afternoon I was exploring the different gateways into the upper village, sitting and doing some sketching. I had sat down for maybe two minutes and started to draw, maybe a few lines, and I feel someone over my shoulder. I hear a voice say, ‘that is very good... ‘.

So I turn, seeing a couple of gypsy teenagers, and give them and acknowledging smile and saying thanks. They stay where they are “that is very very goood, wow...’. OK, lets see how this plays out... so I give them a look and a half smile implying “I know you are fucking around with me, but c’mon... just let me do my thing’, hoping they’d just leave. They started making their way up the rad, then start whispering to each other, laughing and heading back towards me. I was leaving that day, and had both my big backpack, and my smaller one with camera and sketchbooks. The larger one starts walking at me, staring me in the eyes the entire time, I can see the younger one eying up my smaller bag... Luckily I was able to get everything in bags and held tight around me, then I walked down to the cafe. They followed me the entire time, and waited outside for a while, but eventually left... I am really not sure what they had in mind, but I didn’t have any interest in finding out...