Sighisoara Local Customs

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Sighisoara was founded at around the 12th century by German craftsmen and merchants, also known as Transylvanian Saxons. Even up to the early 20th century, Germans were still the biggest ethnic population group. Nowadays only approximately 1,5 % Germans still live in the town.

The German language as well as German customs are still quite common in this region of Transylvania.

Many signs are are at least bilingual in Romanian and German, sometimes German even comes first. German schools as well as Lutheran churches still exist.

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Romania has a long tradition of beer brewing. The process was introduced by the Transylvanian Saxons some centuries ago. You still find many beers with German names, e.g. Bergenbier or Golden Brau.

Among others, I tried Romania's "King of Beers" Ursus which has been brewed since 1878 in Cluj-Napoca. The brewery is nowadays owned by South African Breweries as a part of SABMiller.

A Romanian beer, which I drank for the first time in Sighisoara was Bergenbier. The brewery was founded in 1994 in Ploiesti. Nowadays it belongs to the Czech StarBev brweing group.

Generally speaking, I was absolutely fine with all beers, which I tasted on our several trips through Romania.

Ursus beer: http://www.ursus.ro/

Bergenbier: http://www.bergenbier.ro/

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Although Romania joined the European Union (EU) on the 1st of January 2007, they don't have the Euro as currency. Romania is planning to join the Eurozone in 2014.

Since the 1st of July 2005 the official Romanian currency is the Leu (Plural: Lei), which is divided into 100 Bani. The ISO code for Lei is RON (Romanian New Lei).

Before this date the currency was also called Leu, but had four more 0, which means 1 new Lei equals 10.000 old Lei. The ISO code for the old Lei was ROL (Romanian Lei).

On all my trips to Romania, I usually got my local money from cash points (ATM), although plenty of exchange offices are usually available as well.

You can't blame people for trying to make a living. One woman had a life-sized cardboard cutout of Vlad Tepes and was charging people to stand next to it for a photo opportunity. Also, of course, there is the Casa Dracula Restaurant and a Dracula souvenir shop.

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carriages are seen usually in the countryside.. its a really primitive economy, agriculture is the most important resource in Romania or at last in the countryside in little towns far away from Bucharest .
Actually in mostly countrysides in eastern Europe you can see everywhere hay piles to feed animals in winter as you can see in that pic

On the way to Sighisoara the train stops in several stops ..the guy sit in front of me talk me about dont miss out on that place...there was a gipsy neighbourhood with their buildings and their people... I guess it was Blaj that town, i have to say that i never get trouble with it and neither any trouble walking wherever with them, at all... it was simple curiosity

One feature that define mostly towns is sth i'd never seen before.. the graveyards are always on the top of the town over a hill meanwhile the town and its life is on the plain... so different to Spain where all is in the same level...mostly of it

2 hours and half almost 3 i guessed that journey took!! reallu interesting anyway to behold such great little towns and local people waiting in the train stations !
You could imagine such a great train was lol... really cosy !!