Transylvania: Let's do the time warp again

There were 20 of us on the twin prop, mostly men with shaven heads who'd come to do deals, and plain-clothes policemen following them. As we stepped out of the plane a woman with a clipboard shouted, "Follow me! Follow me!" She seemed to be the entire ground crew of the small, concrete Sibiu International Airport.

At the passport queue a notice urged us not to try to bribe the staff. Bags were piled up in what looked like a large cupboard and you took it in turns to clamber in and dig yours out.

So here I finally was in Sibiu, the heart of Transylvania and a European Capital of Culture 2007. A man in a smart black suit and T-shirt who had just collected his Armani bag offered me a lift into town. His name was Rudi and he ran an art gallery. "A real one, if you know what I mean." I didn't, not then.

Rudi dropped me in the town centre, which was a lot, lot prettier than I had expected. It had recently been repainted and was as colourful as a Disney village out of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. All the houses had heavy wooden doors admitting carriages into passageways under the bedrooms of Sibiu's burghers. According to local legend, when the lost children of Hamelin emerged from the Almasch cave they found themselves in Transylvania. For this reason the cobbled streets of this fortified city were said to be full of blond, blue-eyed German-speaking citizens known as "Saxons". They've mostly gone now but their houses and fortifications remain, one of a number of German enclaves across Transylvania.

The main square is an eye-opener. It used to be called the Grosser Ring but today it is Piata Mare. The Transylvanian Romanians who gave it that name were allowed to trade in the big square only on Sundays. The rest of the week Sibiu was known as Hermannstadt and belonged to its Saxons. I had assumed they'd conquered Transylvania but in the history museum I learned that they were actually invited in by the owner of Transylvania, King Bela of Hungary. Back in the 12th century, Bela wanted to create a buffer zone between his country and anyone who wanted to invade it. Bela III had a lot of respect for German mercenaries.

When these Teutonic trader warriors arrived north of the Carpathians they found a landscape of swamps and islands. On the most defensible of these they built a fortified town. You can still visit the fortifications. Right until the beginning of the 20th century Hermannstadt/Sibiu was still surrounded by an unbroken line of defensive walls, bastions and turrets. The walls had never been breached, neither by Turks nor Tartars, but sadly they mostly fell down during the stupid, derelict rule of Nicolae Ceausescu. There's just one line left now, three towers facing south along Cetatii Street.

But historic walls were the least concern of the city's German population during Communism. Many of them were deported to Soviet labour camps after the Second World War; most lost their homes to the government; some stood trial as collaborators. Against this kind of persecution the fact that Ceausescu's regime let history crumble, refused to repair the churches, concreted over the cobblestones, ripped out the Art Nouveau street lighting or turned the Piata Mare into an exercise yard mattered very little.

Things got so bad for Romania's "Saxons" that the president realised he could prop up the country's ailing economy by literally selling its German citizens back to the government in Bonn, 10,000 a year. When Ceausescu was finally gunned down by his own people in 1989 and the borders opened, the remaining German population of Hermannstadt/Sibiu decamped en masse. They now make up only 1 per cent of the city's population.

"If you had seen Piata Mare in 1990 you would not have recognised it," says Helga, a teacher. "Unesco has done a wonderful job." There's a lot to be said for being declared a World Heritage Site. The only problem is that Helga can't paint her own house. "They say it has to be blue because it was blue when it was first built in 1600 and it has to be the right blue." She shrugs. "I suppose I've waited 400 years already; a bit longer won't matter."

Later I take a walk round the square. It reminds me of Prague, an eclectic mix of merchants' houses and palaces plus a Jesuit seminary and Catholic cathedral imposed in 1726 when the Habsburg Empire took over Transylvania and all its Saxon settlements. Like Prague it's been wonderfully restored; I just hope it doesn't go the same way, cramming in outlets of Body Shop and Zara.

Next I wander down to the Thalia Hall, a beautiful 18th-century theatre that was built into the line of fortifications in 1788. Strauss and Liszt performed here. Schiller had a holiday home here and in 1797 the governor's personal physician founded the world's first homeopathic laboratory. Truly this was once a pocket Vienna.

Back in Piata Mare I go to look at the fountain in the centre. The Communists demolished it in 1949 and the Social Democrats restored it in 1990. I also look at the huge sweeping red-tiled roofs that unify this disparate collection of medieval, baroque and 19th-century architecture surrounding me. They all have "Sibiu eyes", wide-lidded windows in the eaves that look for all the world as if every roof has blinked open to look at you. Sad to think that it was from these "eyes" in 1990 that Ceausescu's Securitate gunned down 92 protesters in Piata Mare.

"So how are you enjoying our Cultural City?" asks Rudi. I admit to feeling sorry that the culture we Europeans are celebrating here is actually one that was driven out of Sibiu.

"We still have the biggest German population in Romania," he tells me. "People still send their kids to the German school here. They think it's the way forward. German is the language of business, at least here in Transylvania."

I ask whether Rudi thinks Sibiu will go the same way as Prague, a prettified theme park. "We're building our malls out of town. No, I don't think we'll make that mistake. What bothers me is all these cafés. Everywhere is an art café these days. Ever since we got European Capital of Culture."

I ask him if he's worried about competition.

"No I'm worried about 2008 and all we've got to show is a lot of empty cafés."

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Adrian Mourby travelled to Sibiu with Austrian Airlines (020-7766 0300; austrianairlines.co.uk) which offers return flights from £302. He stayed at Hotel Imparatul Romanilor (00 40 21 411 6690; hotel.imparatul.romanilor. tourneo.ro), which offers b&b in a double room from £73 per night.

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