Prejmer Fortified Church

Prejmer was the most heavily fortified of the Saxon churches and was besieged repeatedly without falling. The walls are up to twelve metres high and four thick, with a single entrance through a long defended passage, and the striking feature is what lines the inside of them: nearly three hundred small rooms stacked four storeys high, reached by wooden galleries and stairs, one allocated to each family of the village so that everyone had a store of food and a place to sleep through a siege. Walking the galleries and looking into the numbered cells gives a clearer picture of medieval village defence than any museum. At the centre stands a Gothic church of the early thirteenth century, built by Cistercians and unusual in Transylvania for its cross plan, with a triptych from around 1450 inside. The whole ensemble is compact and remarkably complete.

What to look for

• The storeroom galleries - hundreds of family cells stacked inside the walls.
• The defended entrance - a long passage with gates and a portcullis.
• The Gothic church - a cross-plan church with a fifteenth-century triptych.
• The wall walk - galleries and stairs around the inner ring.

When to go

April to October for full opening; winter hours are short and the galleries can be closed in ice. Weekdays are quiet. It combines naturally with a Brașov base, and it is close enough for a morning visit.

Before you go

The site is compact and an hour covers it. The wooden stairs and galleries are steep and narrow, and awkward for anyone with mobility difficulties. It is cold inside the walls even in summer. Interpretation is modest, and the surrounding village is ordinary.

Nearby

Brașov is twenty minutes southwest; Râșnov and Bran lie beyond it.

Key facts