A tour of Transylvanian fortified churches: surely catering to a somewhat specialist taste? The case in favour: first, this unique phenomenon is visually astounding and historically enthralling. Second, of dozens of surviving examples, we have selected a choice few, each of which exhibits a feature which sets it apart from the others. Third, seeing these places necessitates seeing some extraordinarily unspoilt villages and a way of life you will not see anywhere else. And all this amidst enchanting countryside.

Horses still pull carts and ploughs, chickens and ducks wander the unpaved streets, rows of handsome houses of identical design and layout follow a plan set out in the Middle Ages. Many of these ‘Saxon’ villages date to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries when north Europeans, predominantly Germans, were recruited to migrate to Europe’s borderlands to farm, build, mine and trade. In due course they also became bulwarks against incursions from the East, first Tartars and then, beginning in the fifteenth century, the Ottomans, a more formidable foe. Hence the extraordinary fortifications around their village churches, constructed as citadels to protect the whole village, permanently stocked in expectation of a sudden siege.

Oscillating between independence and Hungarian and Romanian suzerainty, Transylvania is one of the principalities which make up modern Romania (a large country, two thirds the size of Germany). Through good times and bad, the ‘Saxons’ remained a prominent, even dominant, feature of the region until the end of Communism in 1989. Then, within a couple of years, 90% moved to Germany.
The time to see these villages is now. Congregations are tiny or nonexistent, the villages partially repopulated with people who care nothing about heritage. With the scant resources of the poorest member of the EU, their fate seems to be either irreversible decay or emasculation and Disneyfication for the tourist industry.

The final argument in favour of this tour is that there is plenty else to see. The towns are marvellous survivals, emerging from grime and dereliction to reveal cityscape as lovely and architecturally interesting as anywhere in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. There are the finest collections of 16th to 18th-century oriental carpets you will ever see – hanging in churches. There is a nineteenth-century palace as exquisitely wrought as any in Europe. Oh, and there is a Jan Van Eyck which you can bet the Joneses next door haven’t seen.

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