Explore Sighișoara

The Lutheran Church on the Hill stands on the School Hill above Sighișoara's citadel, at 429 metres. Built as a Gothic hall church between 1429 and 1488, it keeps wall paintings from the 1480s that were uncovered in 1934, a late medieval sacrament house and altars brought from other Saxon churches. It is reached by the covered Scholars' Stairs.

The walled upper town of Sighișoara was settled by Transylvanian Saxons in the 12th century and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. Its wall, built between the 14th and 17th centuries, keeps nine of its guild towers, and people still live in the narrow streets around the Citadel Square, the Clock Tower and the Church on the Hill.

The covered wooden Scholars' Stairs were built in 1642 to lead from Sighișoara's citadel up to the school and the Church on the Hill, so that pupils and churchgoers could climb the slope sheltered from snow in winter. Of about 300 original steps, around 175 remain, under a long roof of timber beams and boards.

Vlad Dracul House is a yellow medieval house on Museum Square, beside the Clock Tower. Vlad II Dracul, ruler of Wallachia, is recorded as living in Sighișoara between 1431 and 1435, and tradition holds that his son Vlad III, later called the Impaler, was born in this house. It now holds a restaurant, with an old mural of a man in a turban upstairs.

The 64-metre Clock Tower guarded the main gate of Sighișoara's upper town and served as the town hall until 1656. Its Baroque roof with four corner turrets was built after the fire of 1676, and its clock has carved wooden figures. Since 1898 the tower has housed the town's History Museum, which leads up to a viewing gallery below the roof.

The Monastery Church belonged to a Dominican monastery first recorded in 1298 and is now the Lutheran parish church of Sighișoara. The Gothic hall church dates from 1492–1515; inside are a Baroque altar of 1681, a bronze font from 1411 and a collection of Transylvanian carpets of the 16th and 17th centuries. The monastery itself was demolished in the 1880s.

The Shoemakers' Tower marks the north-eastern end of the citadel wall in Sighișoara. First mentioned in the 1520s, the guild tower was destroyed by the fire of 1676 and rebuilt in Baroque style in 1681 on a pentagonal plan, under a tall roof with two small lookout turrets. It is seen from outside; a local radio station has used it since 2000.