Sighișoara (Schäßburg in German, Segesvár in Hungarian) was founded by Transylvanian Saxons, German-speaking settlers invited by the kings of Hungary from the mid-12th century to hold the eastern frontier. A document of 1280 records the town as Castrum Sex on the site of an earlier fort; it was a royal centre by 1337 and received urban status in 1367, becoming one of the seven Saxon strongholds that gave Transylvania its German name, Siebenbürgen.
The citadel on its hill keeps the layout of a fortified guild town. Of the 14 towers that once guarded the walls, nine survive, each built and defended by a craft guild: the Tailors’, Tinsmiths’, Ropemakers’, Butchers’, Furriers’, Bootmakers’, Ironsmiths’ and Tanners’ towers and the 64 m Clock Tower, whose wooden figurines and clock were added after the fire of 1676 and which now houses the history museum. The covered wooden Scholars’ Stairs (1642) climb to the Gothic Church on the Hill and the old German school; the Dominican Monastery Church, Lutheran since the Reformation, stands beside the Clock Tower.
Vlad II Dracul, prince of Wallachia, lived here in exile from 1431 to 1435 and minted coins in the town; his son Vlad III, the Impaler, is generally said to have been born here around 1431, and the house on the citadel square that carries his name is now a restaurant. The town also produced Hermann Oberth, the rocketry pioneer, born in 1894.
The historic centre was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 as an outstanding example of a small fortified medieval town. Sighișoara lies on the railway between Brașov (about two hours) and Cluj-Napoca; the citadel is a steep walk from the station and is pedestrianised during the Medieval Festival on the last weekend of July.
