In February 2022, I visited the fortified church in Prejmer on a day trip from Romania’s capital, Bucharest. If you want to stay within Romania, Prejmer is actually the closest World Heritage site from Bucharest (although Srebarna Nature Reserve, the Rock-Hewn Churches of Ivanovo and the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari are located closer to Bucharest on the Bulgarian side of the border). I stayed a week in Bucharest with my family and convinced my fellow-travellers, who are not interested in ticking off obscure World Heritage sites at all, to rent a car for a day and make the 3-hour drive to Prejmer. 

What helped to convince my family (and myself if I’m being honest) that this drive was worth it, is that Prejmer is very close to Brasov, a large city with a well-preserved historical core (in contrast to Bucharest). The first stop on our road trip was “Dracula’s castle” or the Bran Castle, 2.40 hours driving from Bucharest or only 30 minutes from Brasov. We only went for the Dracula hype and were quite disappointed when we arrived. The people in Bran were not nice, the castle was not impressive. Anyways, we even decided going inside was not worth it. I think if you’re even the least interested in Eastern European history, the castle and the Dracula tourism will feel very fake. 

From Bran, we drove on to Prejmer, the location of one of the WH fortified churches, which is located on the other side of Brasov. This drive takes about 40 minutes. I had never seen a fortified church before and I was quite impressed with how well it was preserved. I expected a small church with a wall surrounding it, but it actually felt like a small village which the church was only a part of. The inside of the church was not very special, but the walls as seen from the inside provided a very nice insight into the actual function of such fortified churches: to house a high amount of the village population and all of their needs and professions in times of danger. I liked it, it was unique to me, but my fellow-travellers were less impressed. To them, it is just a plain church with a wall around it. To me, it is part of the larger context of Eastern European history, something I’m very interested in. Entrance was cheap, a couple of euros per person if I remember correctly, and no souvenirs are sold on site (which I thought was a shame because I like to buy postcards at every WH site I visit so I guess the entrance ticket will have to do). The actual town of Prejmer itself is not impressive and we did not spend a lot of time there. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Brasov, which we all enjoyed very much. Especially the main square is worth a visit. If one finds themself in Brasov, I would recommend also visiting Prejmer as it is very close. As a day trip from Bucharest (i.e. 2 times a 3-hour drive) however, I would only suggest this trip to the most hardcore WH travellers. The area surrounding Bucharest (Walachia) is very empty and I was disgusted while driving past cities like Ploiesti, cities that only exist because oil is extracted there. When you enter Transylvania, that is from Sinaia, the landscape gets more interesting. 

I would love to return to Romania to visit Transylvania more extensively. Now I only got a glimpse of Brasov and Prejmer, but I’m sure visiting the other WH sites in the region would add to the experience.