Alba Carolina Fortress, the most important landmark in Alba Iulia, Romania, can be easily visited during half a day. We arrived by car from Sebes (Arad – Lugoj -Deva – Sebes – Alba Iulia) but you can also get here by train from any part of Romania. The closest airport is (probably) in Cluj Napoca (and is served by Wizz Air)

We entered through Gate 1 and was stunned by the lack of information (which turns out to be what Romania is really good at!). Just a map with some points which marked the important things. But once you get through another gate (pictured below) you are on your own …no signs to…anything.

Luckily, we did catch a change of guards. It’s the only “tourist oriented” change of guards in Romania but I wasn’t exactly impressed (especially by how they couldn’t control the crowds). As a result we stayed for about half of the change of guards and moved on…

Within the fortress there is an interesting Route of the Three Fortifications, which offers the possibility to “go back in time” and see Alba Iulia as The Roman Castre (106 AD), The Medieval Citadel (XVIth -XVIIth cent.) and the Alba Carolina Citadel. Since I read that the Roman ruins aren’t exactly exciting , decided to skip this (10 lei is the entrance ticket for adults).

So, we went on through a square (where there was a play for children since we ended up in Alba Iulia during the Days of the City event) and moved further to get to the National Museum of Unification.

Entrance was 8 lei / adult and the tax for taking photos 15 lei. The museum is not stunning and also lacks decent information. But, it’s not expensive to visit and you can kill some time here (hide from heat or rain, maybe?). Overall, again, I was reminded that Romanian historical sites and museums lack information.

Opposite the museum is the Union Hall where the Union of 1918 was finalized. Everything was done in Arad but since Arad is in the west of Romania they decided to have the public gathering at Alba Iulia, which is in the center of the country. Again, nothing exciting at the Union Hall. Or maybe just the books with the signatures of all those officially invited to sign the Union papers.

After we hid from a shower, we continued to the most interesting part of the fortress. The Reunification Cathedral (Orthodox Cathedral) is beautiful on the outside but since there was a wedding ceremony when we were there we didn’t see the interior.

However, I fell in love with the The Roman Catholic Cathedral (1246-1291), which houses the tombs of John Hunyadi (Iancu de Hunedoara) and Isabella Jagiello (Queen of Hungary). The church reminded me of a very old church I saw in Budapest (the oldest in the Hungarian capital).

We spent most of the time in the Museum and in the Catholic Cathedral; but even so it took us more than 2 hours to cover Alba Carolina Fortress.

A bit of history

Alba Carolina was designed by the Italian architect Giovanni Morando Visconti. It was built between 1714 and 1738 on the site of the Roman Apulum and the Medieval Citadel. It has seven bastions which create the star-shaped Vauban fortress (note: Arad Fortress is built in the same style).

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