Sighişoara, Romania

Sighișoara is a medieval town of roughly 28,000 people on the Târnava Mare River in central Romania, settled by Saxon colonists in the 12th century. UNESCO added its historic center to the World Heritage List in 1999. The citadel hill is enclosed by a 930-meter wall fitted with nine surviving towers of the original fourteen. The 64-meter Clock Tower, built in 1556, holds history exhibits and a clock whose wooden figures rotate on the hour. The 1431 house on the citadel square where Vlad the Impaler was born still stands, its painted facade waiting inside the gates.