Sighișoara
Romania
A walled citadel on a hill that people still live in, empty again by six once the day-trippers leave
Photo by Theo Lonic on Unsplash
Photos by Theo Lonic, Theo Lonic and Theo Lonic on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Romania
May to June, and September (the medieval festival weekend in high summer fills every bed)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 100mm in Jun
Where it is
46.22°N, 24.79°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Stay the night inside the citadel and walk it after the coaches have gone
- Climb the Clock Tower for the view of the walls
- Take the covered Scholars’ Stairs up to the Church on the Hill and its cemetery
- Drive to Biertan and climb into its fortified church
- Spend a night in Viscri or Saschiz for the villages as they are
- Skip Vlad’s house unless you want a restaurant with a story
Sighișoara travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Romania
Good valuePay in lei. There are exchange houses in the lower town; check the commission as well as the rate, and do not change money in the citadel’s souvenir shops. Guesthouses and restaurants take cards, the Saxon villages around less reliably.
ATMs & cards
Use a Banca Transilvania, BCR or BRD machine in the lower town; the citadel has few. Skip Euronet and decline the conversion. Draw cash before driving out to Biertan or Viscri.
Avoid these
- Euronet
- changing money in souvenir shops
Use these instead
- Banca Transilvania
- BCR
- BRD
Machines are in the lower town rather than the citadel. The Saxon villages have none.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Romania
Very safeVery safe; the risk in the citadel is the cobbles and the Scholars’ Stairs, which are icy in winter and slippery when wet. On the roads out to the villages, horse carts and slow tractors are common after dark with no lights. Walkers between the Saxon villages meet shepherds’ dogs; give the flocks a wide berth.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the Scholars’ Stairs — icy in winter and slick in rain, and the cobbles above them too
- Country roads after dark, where horse carts and tractors run without lights
- Shepherds’ dogs on the walks between the Saxon villages — keep well clear of the flocks
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Romania visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Romania
Good and affordableRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis if you will be walking in Carpathian forest between spring and autumn
- Rabies if you plan to work with animals or spend long periods in remote countryside
Getting treated
EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment. State hospitals are free at the point of use with an EHIC or GHIC, but under-resourced; the private networks — Regina Maria, MedLife, Sanador — are quick, English-speaking and cheap by Western standards, and are what most visitors end up using.
Ticks in forest and long grass from April to October — check yourself after walks. Bears are genuinely present in the Carpathians around Brașov: keep food sealed, never approach one, and do not walk mountain trails at dusk. In the Danube Delta the mosquitoes from May to August are relentless and need proper repellent rather than a supermarket spray.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodEat in or below the citadel rather than on the main square, where the menus are in five languages for a reason. Saxon dishes — soups soured with tarragon, smoked pork, plum cakes — are easiest to find in the village guesthouses, where a home-cooked dinner is often the best meal of the trip.
Travel tipsGetting around
Limited- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- Against a taxi
- Cheaper and, more to the point, quoted before you get in.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Bucharest — 7 hours ahead of you
1 hour of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–10:00 your time, 16:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 02:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 02:00–10:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
eSIM
A data eSIM for Romania, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:
Works here
Works hereRevolutIn the app
Must-see
Travel tipsNearby day trips
Travel tipsSay a few words
Romanian
- HelloBună ziuaBOO-nuh ZEE-wa
- Hi (informal)Salutsa-LOOT
- PleaseVă rogvuh ROG
- Thank youMulțumescmool-tsoo-MESK
7 more phrases
- Yes / NoDa / Nuda / noo
- Excuse meScuzați-măskoo-ZATS-muh
- How much is it?Cât costă?kuht KOS-tuh
- The bill, pleaseNota, vă rogNO-ta vuh ROG
- Do you speak English?Vorbiți engleză?vor-BEETS en-GLEH-zuh
- CheersNorocno-ROK
- GoodbyeLa revederela reh-veh-DEH-reh
A Romance language in a Slavic neighbourhood — with Italian or Spanish you will read the signs long before you can hear the speech. English is widely spoken by anyone under forty and in every hotel; French is more common with older people. The letters ș and ț are "sh" and "ts", and î and â are a sound English does not have, somewhere behind the vowel in "roses".
Travel tipsReligion
Romanian Orthodox
About four in five Romanians are Orthodox, and it is practised rather than nominal — churches are busy on ordinary weekday mornings and people cross themselves passing one from a bus. Visitors are welcome at services: stand, keep quiet, do not walk in front of the icons, and cover shoulders and knees. Easter, not Christmas, is the great feast, and the whole country slows down for it. Transylvania is the exception to all of this, with Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches in the same square as the Orthodox one — a legacy of Hungarian and Saxon settlement that the fortified churches still record.
Travel tipsDo's and don'ts
Do
- Take your shoes off when you enter someone’s home — slippers will be offered, and refusing them is the odd move
- Say bună ziua on entering a small shop, and la revedere on the way out
- Accept the țuică poured on arrival, or at least touch the glass to your lips
- Cover shoulders and knees in Orthodox churches, and stand rather than sit if the congregation is standing
- Bring an odd number of flowers if you are invited to dinner — even numbers are for graves
Don't
- Do not use "gypsy" as a synonym for Romanian. Roma are one of the country’s minorities and the conflation is the single fastest way to sour a conversation
- Do not open with Dracula and expect delight — Vlad Țepeș is a national figure here and the vampire is a Victorian novelist’s invention
- Do not photograph during an Orthodox service, or icons where a sign asks you not to
- Do not haggle in shops; markets are the only place where it is normal, and even there gently
- Do not expect the bill to be split to the last leu in company — one person tends to pay and it evens out over a trip
Where to stay in Sighișoara
No Holistay rentals in Sighișoara yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Sighișoara on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Transilvania Târgu Mureș TGM
1hfrom the airport· 40 km as the crow flies
About an hour by taxi or hire car.
Also worth pricing: Sibiu SBZ — an hour and a half by road, with Lufthansa to Munich and Austrian to Vienna as well as Wizz Air.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
