A few hundred meters from the village's protestant church, on a small patch of land rising above the confluence of the Mureș and Pianu creeks, stand the ruins of the renaissance Martinuzzi Castle. In its place once stood a monastery established in the 14th century by the Dominican Order.
We may learn about Lajos Bethlen's castle and its garden only from contemporary descriptions and drawings, because due to a series of destructions only the crypt, which used to be part of the garden can still be seen.
The building with an L-shaped ground plan has a high ground level and contains a cellar which has windows. The manor's facade, facing the street is defined by pilasters with plinths and capitals. The building has jack arched windows with window sills under them. The decoration runs down on the first window of the southern side-facade. At the meeting point of the two facade there can be seen a bastion-like turret.
The Brașov Fortress is located on a hill, 64 m above the city of Brașov, at 651 m above sea level. The hill's eastern side belongs to Old Brașov and its western side to Bolonya. The Fortress was built in wood in 1524 and it contained a semi-circle tower surrounded by a wall. In 1529, Petru Rareș the Moldavian vajda who supported king John conquered and demolished the citadel of Brasov that took king Ferdinand's side.
The castle has received its today’s form at the turn of the 20th century, when it became the property of the Hye-Klebersberg family. This is the time when the open balcony on four columns at the central axis of the back façade was built. The parapet of the balcony was made of forged iron. In 1952 the castle was transformed into a preventorium, and it still has the same funtion today.
„1774 G. B. M.” – can be read on the stone plaque above the mansion’s entrance. The mansion was inhabited by the Bánffy family until close to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. It then became the property of general Wilburg Aladár, who used the building as barracks. In the middle of the last century, the building hosted the local council, later on the collective.
On the main square of Blaj stands the former Bagdi Castle, which since 1738 (with a small interruption in the 20th century) functions as the Greek Catholic Archbishop's Palace. The castle was built in 1534-1535 by György Bagdi, who designed a T-shaped residential tower with three floors. The entrance was reinforced with a fire-line.
Peisagist assistant
