Cycling holiday visiting Viscri (min 0:14), Valea Viilor ( 2:25), Biertan (3:58), Rasnov (5:23), Prejmer (6:33), Homorod (8:18) among others (8:48)

These Transylvanian villages with their fortified churches provide a vivid picture of the cultural landscape of southern Transylvania. Seven villages are inscribed by UNESCO as world heritage sites. They illustrate building styles and settlement pattern from the 13th to the 16th century.
In the 13th century the kings of Hungary encouraged the colonization of the sub-Carpathian region of Transylvania by a German-speaking population of artisans, farmers and merchants, mainly from the Rhineland. Known as the Transylvanian Saxons, they enjoyed special privileges granted by the Hungarian Crown. TheTransylvanian Saxons were able to preserve their language and customs intact throughout the centuries.
Exposed to danger from the Ottoman Empire, Saxons built defensive works in order to shelter from invaders. Lacking the resources of the European nobility and rich merchants, who were able to fortify entire towns, the Transylvanian Saxons chose to create fortresses round their churches, enclosing storehouses to enable them to withstand long sieges. The seven UNESCO churches are:

BIERTAN: Late Gothic hall-type building, completed around 1522-1523, with two (later three) lines of walls, at the foot of the hill, built at the same time as the church.

CALNIC: Based on a mid-13th-century dwelling tower, a chapel and an oval enceinte; presented in 1430 to the village community, which raised the walls fitted with two towers and transformed the dwelling tower into one for defensive purposes.

PREJMER: Early Gothic Church of the Holy Cross, in the shape of a cross; walled in the 15th century.

VISCRI: Romanesque chapel enlarged in the early 16th century to form a single-nave church, with a fortified storey resting on semicircular arches supported by massive buttresses; walls strengthened in the 17th century.

DARJIU: Late Gothic church fortified towards 1520, decorated with murals going back to 1419; rectangular enceinte restructured in the 17th century.

SASCIZ: Romanesque church and its enceinte replaced by a late Gothic church (1493-1525); defensive storey gives the church the appearance of a high bastion.

VALEA VIILOR: Church transformed into late Gothic style and fortified in the early 16th century; defensive storeys built above the choir, nave and tower, communicating with each other; porches of the northern and southern entrances protected by small towers with portcullises.

Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC

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