Ninety seconds on Alba Carolina Citadel
The walls are free and never close, and almost everything inside them is ticketed and shuts at six. Treating those as one visit is how people end up walking a fortress at nine at night with every door in it locked.
The largest Vauban fortification in the country, a seven pointed star finished in 1738, with its third gate carved into a triumphal arch. The whole enceinte is walkable and the changing of the guard is performed daily in summer.
Three to four hours is the honest allowance and most of that is spent inside the walls rather than on top of them. The circuit of the defences is a walk in its own right and free at any hour, which is why the place is full of people at dusk who are not visiting anything in particular. The paid attractions are scattered across the interior and keep their own hours: the hall where the union of Transylvania with Romania was declared in 1918, two churches, and a set of museums. In season the guard ceremony at noon pulls a crowd toward the gates and runs long enough to be worth timing a walk around.
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