Top top top! One of our favourite fortified churches in Romania! And quite an experience :) It was closed upon arrival, but the phone number of the keeper was there. After a quick conversation in (my) awful German the extremely friendly lady arrived and opened, and made a bit of a tour. First of all Malancrav is beautiful and amazing, with a 130 strong Saxon community that basically lives in autarky. The church is super nice too, and has amazing al fresco paintings. And to top it all the climb to the tower is adventurous and the views beautiful. Not to be missed!

Our first stop on a ten day self-driven tour of Transylvania, we stayed by ourselves at Malancrav Manor. I can't remember how we came across the Mihae Eminescu Trust but, however it happened, we will always be grateful It is an absolute gem. We stayed in four places - Malancrav, Viscri, Crit and Richis. We did quite a bit of retracing our steps along the rather good but sometimes quite scary E60, but it was all worthwhile to stay in such authentic places. It can't possibly be anything other than a labour of love (even with the cheaper cost of labour and materials in Romania) to offer such luxurious and comfortable places to stay for E60 per person per night and we hope that, by writing our reviews, it may lead others to patronise them. We have stayed at some special and memorable places around the world (I mean of the cases a impluvium type in the Casamance rather than the Four Seasons) and Malancrav Manor is high on our list of those memorable places. Easy too imagine yourself a guest of Rumanian aristocracy as you eat your home-cooked supper by candlelight in the large kitchen warmed by a roaring log burner Spookily quiet at night you can imagine the elegant parties that would have retired to the huge library after supper. In the morning you look out from the balcony over the gardens towards the village and the hills beyond after a comfortable night warmed by another log stove in the bedroom. Oh, yes. The Church. Very nice, not specially memorable except for the rather good museum of traditional life in the upper galleries. But we will never forget the pleasure of having Malancrav Manor to ourselves for one night. We wish the MET very good luck for the future and hope that many more people will be able to enjoy the experience. All credit to the people behind the MET and to the fact that Romania is a much more civilised place than it is given credit for.