Things to do
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Brașov County History Museum
This is one building of several under the same museum, and the half about the walls is told in the Weavers' Bastion across the old town. A fortnight pass covers eight of the city's collections and is the obvious move for anyone staying.
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Black Church
The largest gothic church east of Vienna, begun about 1383 and finished after the Ottoman raids that gave it its name: the 1689 fire that blackened the walls came from the Habsburg side. Inside hangs the largest collection of Anatolian rugs outside Turkey, given by Saxon merchants returning from the Levant.
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Black Tower
The White Tower's twin on the opposite spur, square where the other is rounded, and rebuilt after a lightning strike with a glass top that is either honest or jarring depending on the visitor. Both towers stood outside the wall to watch the ground the defenders could not see.
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Brașov Citadel
The bastion on Straja hill, begun in wood in 1524 and rebuilt in stone, which held the town's last defence and later its garrison. It looks down on the whole basin and is a short steep walk from the square.
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Casa Wagner
A merchant house of 1521 on the Council Square itself, converted into a small hotel with the vaulted ground floor left as it was. The rooms on the front look straight out at the Council House.
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Catherine's Gate
The only original city gate left standing, built in 1559 with four corner turrets that signalled the town's right to pass a death sentence. The Romanian population of the Șchei quarter was for centuries allowed into the walled town only through this gate, and only on certain days.
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Council Square
The old town's single wide square, ringed by burgher houses in ochre and rose with the Council House standing alone in the middle of it. It is the one place in Brașov that is busy all year, and the terraces on the south side hold the afternoon light.
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First Romanian School Museum
A schoolroom in the Șchei quarter that has been in use since 1495, holding the first books printed in Romanian by Deacon Coresi in the 1550s. It is a small and densely told collection, and it is the counterweight to the Saxon story inside the walls.
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Hărman Fortified Church
A Saxon peasant fortress ten kilometres out on the plain, its church wrapped in a ring wall with grain stores and family rooms built into the inside face. The 1400s chapel in the eastern tower keeps a wall painting of the Last Judgement that survived because the room was used for storage.
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Postăvarul Massif
The mountain above Poiana Brașov, rising to 1,799 metres, with gondolas from the resort and a ridge walk along the top. It is the city's ski hill in winter and its nearest real summit the rest of the year.
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Seven Ladders Canyon
A narrow limestone gorge in the Piatra Mare massif climbed on seven bolted steel ladders through a chain of small waterfalls, about 160 metres of ascent inside the rock. The walk in takes an hour from the road and the canyon itself is wet in any weather.
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Tâmpa
The forested mountain that stands directly over the old town at 960 metres, with a cable car up the north face and a zigzag path for anyone who would rather walk it in an hour. The whole medieval plan reads from the top, which is the quickest way to understand how tightly the walls held the town.
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White Tower
A half-round watchtower of about 1494 on the rock above the Graft bastion, reached by a long flight of steps from the moat path. It was the outer eye of the wall system rather than part of it, and the view down onto the roofs is the reason to climb.
