POSSIBILITIES FOR RURAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AROUND FORTIFIED CHURCHES

Abstract

Although the occurrence of tourism vanished in time and, consequently, due to the lack of historical data, we can not establish the precise time of his separation as a distinct activity, it seems, however, that some early forms of tourism have been practiced since  ancient times. Transylvania, hilly region, located in the center of Romania, represents a very special cultural landscape. Characterized by century-old cohabitation of Romanian, Hungarian and German communities, the region has a unique feature: nowhere else in the world such a concentration of fortified churches and church-fortress they is not preserved on an area so restricted, seen as a testimony to such a varied work of defense techniques. The origin and development of the churches fortifications are, of course, related to the troubled history of Transylvania based on Tatar invasion since 1241 to 1242, through repeated incursions of the Turks - since 1395 - to the devastating defeat at Mohács in 1526. Transylvanian villages with Saxon fortified churches provide a lively image of the cultural landscape of southern Transylvania. These villages are characterized by a specific system of cultivation land, a settlement and organization model of farms, preserved since the Middle Ages. The localities are dominated by their fortified churches, which illustrate the building periods of  the XIIIth until the XVIth century. The most famous of these villages is Biertan.