Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Bazna
(Baassen in German), a small village first settled in 1302, is northwest of Medi-
aş (head north towards Târnăveni for 10km then west for another 5km). Its late-Gothic St
Nicholas' Church was built at the start of the 16th century on the ruins of a 14th-century
original. Its highlight is the three pre-Reformation bells (1404) in the church tower.
Back on the Târnăveni road, go another 5km north, then take the road to 'Delenii' for
6km to reach
Băgaciu
(Bogeschdorf in German). The pre-Reformation, late-Gothic altar
in its church, restored in Vienna in 1896, is considered to be the best-preserved Saxon
church altar.
About 10km south from Mediaş is
Moşna
(Meschen in German), with a 15th-century
church built in late-Gothic style and an eight-storey bell tower.
About 5km southeast of Copşa Mică is
Valea Viilor
(Wurmloch in German). The vil-
lage, dating from 1263, has a quaint fortified church, which was raised at the end of the
15th century and is surrounded by 1.5m-thick walls. The building is on Unesco's list of
World Heritage sites.
Axente Sever
, literally a minute south of Copşa Mică on the road to Sibiu, has a 14th-
century church (fortified in the 15th century) with a testing bell-tower-climb requiring
progress on all fours at times.
Şeica Mică
(Kleinschelken in German) is 3km west of a turn-off 11km south of Copşa
Mică on the road to Sibiu. The village was engulfed by fire several times during the 16th
century, but remarkably its local church, built in 1414, survived. Its beautiful baptismal
font is late Gothic (1447) in style and cast from iron.
GREAT READS: WILLIAM BLACKER'S 'ALONG
THE ENCHANTED WAY' (2010)
Described by the
Sunday Times
as 'A lyrical description of an almost vanished way of life',
Along the Enchanted
Way
tells of the author's abiding love for and immersion into rustic Romanian life. In his own words he was 'en-
tranced by the Eastern Europe of wooden peasant cottages on the edge of forests inhabited by wolves and bears,
of snow and sledges and sheepskin coats, and of country people in embroidered smocks and headscarves'. His
story follows his life scything meadows next to peasants, wolf-troubled shepherds, and falling in love with a beau-
tiful Roma girl.
Blacker, grandson of the first man to fly over Mt Everest, lived initially in Maramureş with an old couple who
worked off the land, before he moved to Saxon country. It's largely thanks to Blacker's campaigning that the out-
side world knows of the existence of the 200-odd Transylvanian Saxon villages with their fortified churches dat-
ing back to the 14th and 16th centuries. In 1996 he wrote a pamphlet on the threat to their preservation that re-
