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 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 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.

The stone stronghold of the princes of Moldavia in Suceava, built by Peter Mușat and strengthened by Stephen the Great, with a bridge over the moat, walls over 10 m high and a display of medieval arms and treasure.

The only Székely and Unitarian church in the UNESCO fortified-church site: a Gothic church with 1419 frescoes of the legend of Saint Ladislaus, whose fortress villagers still use to store their bacon.

The ruins of a 14th-century fortress, probably built by the Genoese on a limestone hill above lakes Razim and Babadag, with one of the widest views in Dobruja.

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.

Vlad the Impaler's fortress, perched on a ridge above the Argeș Gorge on the Transfăgărășan; 1,480 steps lead up to walls that look out over the whole valley.

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 Late Gothic Saxon church beside the DN13, with a bell tower modelled on Sighișoara's Clock Tower; on the hill above the village stand the walls of a 14th-century peasant fortress.

The Saxon church in a vineyard valley near Mediaș, with its choir turned into a defence tower, an almost intact oval wall and a wood-and-iron portcullis that has survived for centuries.

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.