BRASZOW
Brasov (Brasov, in Hungarian, Brassó) is a pleasant medieval town at the foot of green hills, one of the most visited places in Romania. The local market, Council Square, with baroque facades and nice open-air cafes, with a wonderful fountain, light marble floor and numerous benches, it is the most beautiful in the whole country.
From Brasov you can easily get by train or bus to the Sinaia and Poiana Brasov ski resorts, castles in Bran and Risnov and hiking trails in the picturesque Bucegi Mountains.
The beginnings of settlement here date back to antiquity, but a proper commercial town - Corona – founded in the 13th century. As a German trading colony, Kronstadt, thanks to its strategic position in place, where the borders of the three principalities met, the city grew into an important medieval trading center. The local Saxons built magnificent churches and tenement houses, and they surrounded the whole city with the mighty, a defensive wall preserved to this day. Romanians, on the other hand, lived in Scheia, just outside the walls to the southwest. Soon after the colony was founded, the name of Barasu appeared, potem Brasov and Brasov.
Today, Brasov is the seventh largest city in Romania, although with 324 with thousands of inhabitants, it is six times smaller than Bucharest. Tractor factories are now more important than commercial activities, trucks and soap, and the picturesque old town is surrounded by concrete blocks of flats typical of communism. Fortunately, you can't see them from the center, however, you have to get through them on your way from the train station.
Orientation
The train station is to the north-east, far out of the center, the bus goes to #4 (tickets are bought at kiosks); you have to get off at Parcul Central. Od parku do Piata Sfatului biegnie strada Republicii, car-free promenade full of shops and cafes. Luggage room (open 24 hours a day) is located at the station in the underpass under the tracks.
Information
Tourist offices – A tour desk is located in the Aro Palace's lobby, przy Bulevardul Eroilor 25, but actually you can only buy an expensive city map here.
Biuro Touring ACR (tel.118920), at the Capitol Hotel, provides assistance to motorists. ACR's main office (tel.135476) located outside the center, przy Bucharest street 68.
Money BANC (pn.-pt. 8.00-12.00), at strada Republicii 20a, gets 5% commission for exchanging traveler's checks i 1% for a cash withdrawal to a Visa card. Because money can be chosen both in hoppers, and dollars, better ask for dollars and exchange them at the exchange office at Piata Sfatului, which offers a more favorable rate.
Romanian Commercial Bank, at the Republicia strada, near the CFR office, charges a slightly higher commission than BANC, but it is open longer: pn.-pt. 8.00-14.00.
Post and telecommunications – The Main Post Office is located opposite the Heroes' Cemetery, and the telephone exchange (codz.7.00-21.30) przy Bulevardul Eroilor, between the Capitol and Aro Palaces hotels. Direction to Brasov: 068.
Travel agencies – Happy Travel (tel.153980), Sadoveanu street 1, opposite the Postavarul hotel, organizes a relatively inexpensive ski holiday in Poiana Brasov (120-150 $ weekly for accommodation plus tickets for ski lifts).
New Frontiers/Simpa Turism (tel.151173), Council Square, it exchanges currencies at good rates and sells cheap airline tickets for international connections.
Sightseeing
The historic town hall rises in the center of Piata Sfatului (1420), currently housing the Historical Museum (vanishing, pn.). 58-the meter-high Trumpeters Tower comes from 1582 r.
South of the square you can see the Gothic Black Church (1384 – 1477), still serving Protestants of German origin. It was named after the fire in 1689 r. Outside the apse, copies of the statues attract attention, whose originals are now inside, at the back of the church. Inside the temple were hung 119 valuable oriental carpets from the 16th-18th centuries. – make a surprising impression in this typically gothic, and at the same time in a harsh Protestant environment. There is also a Gothic baptismal font and an organ consisting of four thousand pipes (1839). In summer, on Thursdays and Saturdays, Fr. 18.00 organ concerts are held here (0,25 $). The church is closed to visitors on Sunday.
A little further to the southwest stands the neoclassical Schei Gate (1828), behind which the landscape clearly changes: the austere rows of German tenement houses give way to smaller ones, to the more modest houses of the former Romanian settlers.
There is a Prundului strada from the gate, half a kilometer further it comes to Piata Unirii, with the church of St.. Nicholas (St Nicolae din Schei; 1595). Initially, a wooden church stood here; at the end of the 15th century. the erection of a stone temple began and this is how an eclectic building was created, combining elements of different styles: Romanian and Gothic and complementary Renaissance and Baroque elements. Next door is the First Romanian School Museum with a collection of icons, pictures on glass, old manuscripts, etc.. Building a clock tower (1751) financed by the Russian Tsarina Elizabeth. At the time of writing the guide, the museum and the tower were closed for unknown reasons.
From the square, it's best to go back to the gate and turn right before it, to reach the 16th-century Weavers' Bastion, above the sports grounds, from a distance, not very well visible from behind the surrounding greenery. In the fortress, included in the former city fortifications, houses a museum with a fascinating model of 17th-century Brasov, made in 1896 r.
Above the bastion, a pleasant promenade runs through the forest overlooking Braov. In its half there is the Timpa cable car station (cable), open in summer every day. do 20.00 (in winter with excl. pn.); a return ticket costs money 2,50 $. From the queue, which departs from 640 m in height 960 m n.p.m., offers a wonderful panorama of the city and the surrounding area. On foot, you go to the top along a winding path approx. 45 minutes – really worth.
In the art gallery of the Ethnographic Museum (Museum of Ethnography), przy Bulevardul Eroilor 21, next to the Capitol Hotel, a nice collection of romanian art has been gathered.
The white fortress on the hill north of the old town is Cetatea Brasov, built in 1580 r. to defend Saxon merchants against Turkish marauders. Currently, there are two beer terraces open here, average disco and expensive restaurant. However, only the mines remained from the fortress, the place may prove of interest to the hunters of the legend of Vlad the Impaler, who on this very hill punished his victims with impalings. At the foot of the hill stands the Church of St.. Bartholomew, the oldest monument in the city, erected in the second half of the 13th century. in declining Romanesque style. Because it was built before the fortification of the hillfort, it was surrounded by a strong wall, behind which, in the event of an enemy invasion, the city's inhabitants could find shelter.