Cetățuia de pe Strajă

The Cetățuia on Straja hill — the Schlossberg of the Saxons — is a sixteenth-century fortress on the wooded hill north-west of the Old Town, built as an outpost to watch over the city and the roads into it. Its four corner bastions and thick walls are easy to pick out from the White Tower across the valley.

For decades it housed a restaurant, and the interior still opens only occasionally, for events, so do not come expecting a museum. What is always open is the path around the walls and the viewpoint, which are free: from here the view runs over the roofs of Blumăna and the Old Town to Tâmpa and, on a clear day, across the Bârsa plain.

The climb starts from the streets behind Livada Poștei park and takes a short, steep quarter of an hour or so. It is a good alternative to Tâmpa when you have an hour, not half a day, and it is rarely crowded.