Medieval street inside the fortress. Although they are more than 300 years old, the houses are still occupied by people. This is thefourth of a collection of 5 photo-sessions in Romania. The photos were sent to me by Stefan Vilson OACHESU from Bucharest Romania. The photos by Luiza Radu give an overview of Romanian cities and some of the cultural hotspots in these cities. The last session will be published the coming monday.Here you have pictures from Sigisoara. It is located at 165 km north-west of Brasov and is the only medieval fortress in Europe where people are still living permanently. Follow this link for the first of the Romanian photo series, with more background info and photos from BrasovFollow this link for the second of the Romanian photo series, with photos from Prejmer and HarmanFollow this link for the third of the Romanian photo series, with photos from RasnovFollow this link for the fifth of the Romanian photo series, with photos from SibiuSighisoara (in German – Schassburg; in Hungarian – Segesvar) is first mentioned in official documents in the year 1280 (although some chronicles say that the medieval settlement dates from 1191-1198), due to the colonization with Saxons made here by the Hungarian kings, at the end of the XII century. In 1298, the Dominican and Franciscan Orders they are establishing in the little settlement, but the real development of the village begun at the middle of the XIV century, when in Sighisoara they are brought some craftsmen colonists. So that the maximum development period of the city is registered in XV-XVII century, Sghisoara being the locality with the oldest urban status from Transylvania (1517). As regards the Sighisoara fortress, is first mentioned in 1280 as Castrum Sex developed on the higher plateau. The present fortress (extended on the lower plateau also) is built in the XIV – XV centuries, when the fortress was made of a 930 meters long wall, with only 4 meters height. At the end of the XV century, due to the spreading of the fire guns, the walls were heightened with another 3-4 meters. In XVI-XVII century the fortress was again reinforced the height of the walls reaching almost 14-15 meters. Now are also being built the 14 towers, connected to each other by a watch road in the inner part of the walls. There are at least two aspects that makes worth visiting Sighisoara. The first, it refers to the fact that Sighisoara fortress is a part of the UNESCO world patrimony, since 1999. This status was granted due to the preservation of the medieval architecture and atmosphere that characterize the 164 houses (all of them which are at least 300 years old), three churches and 9 (out of 14 initially) towers, most of them still keeping their original functions. The second reason, is the “Medieval Sighisoara” Festival - a medieval art festival. This year he took place between 28-30 July, and the theme was “Cultural tradition and European medieval mystery”. During the three days festival it was organized more then twenty events related to medieval theatre, dance, music, exhibitions, crafts, etc, along other folk, rock, etc concerts.