Sightseeings

The fortress of Fagaras

Făgăras/magh. Fogaras/germ. Fogarasch developed during the Middle Ages around a castle. The Fagaras Fortress or Fagaras Castle is the most impressive monument in the town, and the core around which the town was actually built.
A local legend says that Negru Voda left the castle to travel south past the Carpathians to found the Principality of Walachia, although Basarab I is historically known as the 14th century founder of that state.
Ladislaw Kan started to build it in 1310 on the former place of a 12th century wooden fortress strengthened by earthen walled fortifications. The former fortress had been burned down by Tatars in 1241. The fort was enlarged and rebuilt in the 15th -17th centuries in Transylvanian Renaissance style and came to be known as one of the strongest fortifications in Transylvania. It presents defense towers at the corners and is protected from the outside by defense walls and a water ditch.
In the course of time the fortress entered in the possession of several princes: Baltazar Báthori, Mihai Viteazu, Stefan Csáki, Gabriel Bethlen, Gheorghe Rákóczi I, Mihail Apáfi.
During the 1950s it was a prison for opponents and dissidents of the regime.
After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the castle has been restored and is currently used as a museum and library.