Sibiu Audio Tours

Sibiu has been called the City of Eyes because of the distinctive dormer windows that peer out from the rooftops of its medieval houses like hooded lids, watching the streets below. The Saxons who settled here in the 12th century, invited by King Geza II of Hungary to defend the border territories, called the city Hermannstadt and built a culture so enduring that it shaped Transylvania for eight centuries. The upper town's three medieval squares, each one interconnected and each with a distinct character, form one of central Europe's most complete medieval townscapes, with the Council Tower of 1370 standing between them like a pivot.

Sibiu became the European Capital of Culture in 2007, an honour that triggered a wave of restoration and renovation that polished the old town without sanitising it.

The Brukenthal National Museum, opened in 1817 and the oldest museum in Romania, occupies the palace of Samuel von Brukenthal, governor of Transylvania, and contains Flemish and Dutch masters that would be headline attractions in most European capitals. The city sits in a bowl of hills at the edge of the Carpathians, and the mountains are visible from the towers and walls, close enough to remind visitors that Sibiu's Saxon founders chose this valley for practical reasons of defence and trade as much as for its beauty.