Stairs Passage

The Stairs Passage runs down from the Upper Town, beside the enclosure of the Evangelical Church in Piața Huet, towards the Lower Town. Its upper end is at the junction with Strada Odobescu, next to the Gate Tower and the Altemberger House, now the History Museum. Also known as the "Wall with Needles" (Zidul cu ace), the passage is part of the third ring of Sibiu's medieval fortifications, listed as a historic monument under code SB-II-m-A-12010.03. Some historians date it to the thirteenth century, after the fortifications were extended following the Tatar invasion of 1241-1242, but most specialists believe it was built in the early fourteenth century. It is made of stone and brick and has two branches of steps and arcades arranged around the walls that enclosed the church. On one side rises the Upper Town's defensive wall, built in two terraces and about 10 metres high, supported by massive buttresses that rest, through flying arches, on the buildings of the Lower Town. The four houses at numbers 1-4 were built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, altered in the eighteenth and restored in 1860; they are listed historic monuments (codes SB-II-m-B-12169 to SB-II-m-B-12172). The passage was restored in 1860 and again in 2006, when Sibiu City Hall consolidated the ground, rebuilt the masonry and replaced the cobbles of the steps with new paving. It is a public pedestrian route.