The mountain towns we're visiting now are some of the oldest in Transylvania, and both Medias and Sighisoara have quite a lot of their medieval charm intact. Sighisoara is the only medieval citadel in Europe that is a) largely intact, and b) still inhabited (as opposed to being turned into a museum). It's a lovely town, even more so under the layer of snow that started falling shortly after we arrived.
On the way, our bus suffered a bit of a failure, so while our heroic, stoic bus driver Ion worked to repair it, we had to find other things to do. Unfortunately, the fortified church we had planned to visit was closed for the season, as was the restaurant attached to it (and, for that matter, so was the local police station. We ended up going in to the local pub for a little relaxation time, and some of us quite enjoyed ourselves with a little of the sweet local burgundy/cabernet wine. One of the nice local men shared with us a bottle of the local palinka, and then Ion fixed the bus and we were on our merry way. People here have been wonderfully friendly -- if Ion hadn't succeeded with the bus, the nice man with the palinka was actually prepared to go home and bring some food down to the pub to share with us.
We took a brief, snowball-filled walking tour of the citadel before having dinner at the house in which Vlad Dracula was born. As usual, the food was delightful -- the local sausages and cheeses are quite amazing. There's a more German sensibility to the cuisine in Sighisoara, mostly because minority populations are the majority here -- Germans and Hungarians far outnumber Romanians in this particular town.
Tomorrow, we're off to Bran and Brasov to see more medieval fortress goodness.
Oh, and did I mention that our hotel is supposed to be haunted? Such a Friday the 13th we've had!
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