Fortresses and fortifications

A medieval fortress built by the people of Brașov on a rock in the Bran Pass, later Queen Marie's summer residence and known around the world as “Dracula's Castle”.

A Saxon-built, still-inhabited medieval walled town on a hill above the Târnava Mare, with guild towers and the famous Clock Tower; a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

The Saxon church on the hill in the middle of the village, guarded by three rings of walls and towers; inside, Romania's largest polyptych altarpiece and a door with a lock from 1515.

Romania's largest bastion fortress, a seven-pointed star built by the Habsburgs in 1715–1738 at Alba Iulia; baroque gates, cathedrals, the Union Hall and a changing of the guard, all with free access.

A moated, bastioned fortress in the centre of Făgăraș, seat of the princes of Transylvania in the 17th century and now home to the Făgăraș Land Museum.

The capital of the Dacian kingdom, hidden in the beech forests of the Orăștie Mountains: the walls of Decebalus's fortress, the paved road and the sacred area with andesite and limestone sanctuaries, a UNESCO site.

A pentagonal bastion fortress built by the princes of Transylvania in the 16th–17th centuries: five bastions, a princely palace housing the Oradea City Museum, and courtyards you can walk into freely.

A medieval peasant fortress on a rocky hill above Râșnov, looking out to the Bucegi and Piatra Craiului mountains; the upper enclosure is under restoration, but the Fortress Garden and Báthory Tower are open.

A 13th-century hilltop fortress on a volcanic hill above Deva, with three enclosures restored by 2024 and wide views over the Mureș valley.

The ruins of the oldest city on Romanian soil, a Greek colony founded by Miletus in the 7th century BC on the shore of Lake Sinoe, with the site museum alongside.

A medieval Moldavian fortress on a rocky spur above Târgu Neamț, built by the Mușatin princes and strengthened by Stephen the Great, which held out against Mehmed II's siege in 1476.

One of the largest Saxon fortified churches: a Gothic church on a cross-shaped plan, ringed by an oval wall with over 270 refuge rooms reached by timber galleries.

A Saxon peasant fortress climbing in tiers up a basalt hill above the town of Rupea, first recorded in 1324 and restored in 2010–2013, with wide views over the Transylvanian hills.

A small white church on the hill above the village, grown from a 12th-century Romanesque chapel and ringed by walls, towers and grain galleries, in a Saxon village that has survived almost intact.

A Romanesque basilica from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, left almost unaltered, on the rocky top of St Michael's Hill, ringed by a defensive wall and looking out to the Făgăraș Mountains.