Things to do
10-
ASTRA Museum
The largest open air museum in Europe, spread over 96 hectares of oak forest south of the city, with about 400 buildings moved here from villages across the country. Watermills, oil presses, a bowling alley and whole farmsteads stand along ten kilometres of path.
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Bridge of Lies
The first cast iron bridge in the country, made in 1859 at the Hunedoara works, crossing the drop between the upper and lower towns. The name comes from the tale that it creaks under anyone who lies on it, which is a story about the market that used to be held at either end.
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Brukenthal National Museum
Baron Samuel von Brukenthal's palace and his collection, opened to the public in 1817 and so among the oldest museums in this part of Europe. The European painting galleries are the strongest holding, and the palace rooms have been kept rather than stripped.
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Cisnădie Fortified Church
A Saxon church nine kilometres south with a double ring wall, a bacon tower where families kept their winter stores, and the first lightning conductor in Transylvania on its spire. The tower can be climbed for the view over the Mărginimea villages.
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Council Tower
The tower between the two main squares, part of the second ring of walls and rebuilt several times since the 1200s. The climb is tight and the reward is the only view that shows both squares and the cathedral together.
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Holy Trinity Cathedral
The Orthodox cathedral of 1906, modelled on Hagia Sophia at about a third of the scale, in striped brick with a gilded interior. It answers the Lutheran cathedral three streets away and the pairing is the town's history in two buildings.
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Hotel Imparatul Romanilor
An inn on the main street that has taken guests under this name since 1555, rebuilt in 1895 with a glass roof over the dining room that still slides open. Liszt and Strauss both played in it.
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Pharmacy History Museum
Three rooms in a building that has held a pharmacy since 1600, showing the laboratory, the shop and a homeopathy collection assembled by Samuel Hahnemann's local followers. It is small, and it is the most vivid interior in the old town.
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Piața Mare
The upper town's main square, about a hectare of it, first recorded as a grain market in 1411 and now the town's whole civic stage. The Brukenthal palace stands on one side and the Council Tower closes the corner into the smaller square behind.
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Sibiu Lutheran Cathedral
The gothic hall church begun in the 1300s on the site of a Romanesque predecessor, with a 73 metre tower that can be climbed for the roofscape. The fresco of the Crucifixion of 1445 in the choir is the best medieval painting in the town.