Explore Brașov

The Brașov Art Museum is housed in a neo-baroque building of 1902, designed by Moritz Wagner for the city's Saxon craftsmen's association, and has used it since 1970. Its Romanian Art Gallery shows painting and sculpture from the 18th century onwards, including works by Nicolae Grigorescu, Ion Andreescu, Ștefan Luchian and Nicolae Tonitza.

The Brașov County Museum of History occupies the former Council House in the middle of Piața Sfatului, the seat of the town council from 1420 until 1876. The building took its present baroque form in the 1770s and has housed the museum since 1950; its permanent exhibition covers the history of Brașov, with temporary exhibitions on the first floor.

Council Square is the main square of Brașov's old town, where markets have been held since the 14th century. In its centre stands the former Council House of 1420, now the county history museum, and the square is lined with 18th- and 19th-century merchants' houses, many of them listed monuments, with the Black Church just behind.

The Black Church is a Gothic church begun in the late 14th century as the Catholic Church of St Mary and largely finished by the 1470s; since the Reformation it has been the main Lutheran church of Brașov's Saxons. Inside are a large collection of Anatolian carpets and an organ built by Carl August Buchholz in 1839. The name dates from the 19th century.

Rope Street is a lane in Brașov's old town linking Strada Cerbului with Strada Poarta Șchei, between 111 and 135 centimetres wide and about 80 metres long. First mentioned in the 17th century, it was laid out as a passage for firefighters; today pedestrians walk it in single file between the plastered walls of the houses on either side.

The Black Tower is a watchtower of Brașov's fortifications, built around 1460 on a rock outside the western city wall to keep attackers on the Warthe hill away from the walls. It takes its name from a lightning strike in 1559 that burned its roof and blackened the walls; restored in the 1990s with a glass top, it overlooks the old town.

Catherine's Gate was built by the tailors' guild in 1559 to replace a gate destroyed by a flood, and its tower is the only original medieval city gate of Brașov still standing. Four corner turrets around the spire marked the town's right to pass death sentences, and for centuries it was the entrance that Romanians living in Șchei had to use.

Șchei Gate is a city gate in the walls of Brașov, built in 1827–1828 in classical style, like a triumphal arch, to carry the growing traffic towards the Șchei district. It has a large central arch for vehicles and two smaller openings for pedestrians, with Latin inscriptions recalling Emperor Francis I's visit in 1817; Catherine's Gate stands beside it.

The Weavers' Bastion is a fortified tower at the southern corner of Brașov's old town walls, built and defended by the linen weavers' guild in two phases between 1421 and 1573. Its courtyard is lined with tiers of oak galleries, and the museum inside shows an 1896 scale model of the walled city, medieval weapons and finds from the town's fortifications.

Tâmpa is a forested limestone mountain rising almost 400 metres above Brașov's old town to a summit of about 960 metres, and most of it is a nature reserve. A cable car climbs from the foot of the mountain to the crest in a few minutes, and footpaths, including a serpentine trail cut in 1837, lead to viewpoints over the city and the Burzenland plain.

The First Romanian School is a museum in the courtyard of St. Nicholas Church in Șchei, in the building where teaching in Romanian began in 1583. First built in 1495 and rebuilt in 1760, it served as a school until 1850; its rooms show early Romanian and Slavonic books, documents and a historic printing press.

St. Nicholas Church is a Romanian Orthodox church in Brașov's Șchei district, rebuilt in stone between 1495 and 1519 on the site of a wooden church recorded in 1399. Wallachian and Moldavian princes paid for its porch, bell tower and painted interior; side chapels and a clock tower were added in the 18th century, and the First Romanian School stands in its courtyard.