It's always interesting to see how many layers one city has. By layers I understand architectural style, broken down to different centuries. Each century has its own style, so the older the city, the more varied the offer for tourists. In time cities are developing more and more and you see all kinds or architectural styles. The smart ones know to take good care of their heritage, while others think demolishing the old, to rebuild it is the answer. (Not in my eyes.)
The past week I tried to show you a few layers of Mediaș, like The Medieval City Center - The Wall and The Medieval City Center, in which I tried to show you the wall that surrounds the city and the oldest and nicest street with some amazing architectural style.
Today I'm going to show you the most important part of the city, the center, which is a little bit different from what you've seen so far, but still interesting and nice.
One of the oldest buildings is the Schuller house, which, according to this source is first mentioned in documents in 1588 and belonged to the Schuller family. After that, as it happens in life, the building changed owners and become an inn and a pub.
The house was decorated in the style of the Transylvanian Renaissance. Today, the building is used for cultural and artistic events, exhibitions, communication sessions. It has a conference and performance hall, exhibition and protocol rooms. source
Right next to it there's the way up to the St. Margaret church, the stairs take you up there.
In the meantime, if you get tired of walking, you can have some rest at the terrace of the Offside Cafe.
They have an interesting offer, among which tiramisu you see on the left and the ice cream on the right, which normally is served with cream on the top, but because I don't like cream, mine had none.
Next to the Offside Cafe, there's the Hotel Traube, which is known to everyone and it's a point of reference as well, when you're talking of the city center. It has a rustic, underground restaurant and some nice rooms you can spend the night in. I've always wanted to visit the restaurant, but never did. Maybe one day.
Right in front of these two restaurants there's the green lung of the city center, which is a small park with a fountain in the middle. This is priceless in a hot and torrid day.
Unfortunately there's no shade around the fountain, but you can still sit down and enjoy the fresh air, while admiring the St. Margaret church's tower and the other old buildings of the city center.
On the other side of the square there's another nice restaurant called Trattoria Roma. Unlike with the Traube, I've been here a few times and I can say the food is decent and the prices are reasonable. So if you're in the city, don't miss it.
This is the street that takes you to the tower I have already written about. It's called Nicolae Iorga street and takes you to the Forkesh tower or bastion, as you like.
Buildings here are one more interesting than the other, but unfortunately many are in deed of renovation. Just like this one on the photo.
This building must have seen better days and I suppose those were the Saxon days as there's a German text in the front part of the house, which I have no clue what it means. The architecture is amazing, but my heart was bleeding when I saw in which state the ground level is.
According to the sign on the wall, there's a lawyer's office in the building. I was wondering if that's true as who would trust a lawyer working in an office in such a building?
However, not every building is in a deplorable state.
The problems with these buildings is unclarified ownership combined with high renovation costs. Unless there's a buyer with deep pockets who is willing to accept the boundaries set by the law regarding protected houses,there's not much anyone can do.
Not far from the old city center, there's the new one, if I can call it like that.
That's the Central Hotel, that was built during communist times, without any style.
The other building of the square is the city hall, also built during communist times and also has no style at all. It's boring and ugly in the same time.
