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Hotel Împăratul Romanilor
An inn has stood on this corner of Sibiu’s old town since at least 1544. The building guests see today dates to 1895, and Romanian press has called it the oldest hotel in the country by continuous name and business, if not by unbroken bricks.
At a glance
Hotel Împăratul Romanilor occupies a corner of Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu in Sibiu’s historic center, a few steps from the Orașul de Sus. Its name, “Emperor of the Romans,” dates to 31 May 1783, when the inn then on this site was renamed after a stay by the Habsburg emperor Joseph II, who passed through Transylvania on more than one journey in the 1770s and 1780s. The current building replaced that older inn in 1895 and has operated as a hotel continuously since.
History
The old inn on Bălcescu 4 hosted its share of European musicians passing through Transylvania. Franz Liszt gave a concert in Sibiu on 20 November 1846, stayed at the inn, and left on 24 November; Johann Strauss followed with concerts on 9, 11 and 12 December 1847. In 1879 the inn hosted Johannes Brahms, travelling with the violinist Joseph Joachim. The building itself, though, could not keep pace with the town’s growth: it was demolished in 1891, and a new hotel rose on the same corner, financed by the Hermannstädter Allgemeine Sparkassa (in Romanian, Banca Generală pentru Economii) and designed by the architect Friedrich Maetz.
The new Împăratul Romanilor opened on 7 September 1895. It kept the name and the site’s role as Sibiu’s grand address: the hotel’s own history records stays by Crown Prince Ferdinand and Princess Maria in 1907 and by Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1912. The hotel survived nationalization in 1948 and returned to private management after 1990; the operator’s own site lists it today as one of three properties in a small Romanian group, alongside hotels in Poiana Brașov and Bucharest.
What you see
Maetz gave the façade an eclectic dress typical of the 1890s in Austro-Hungarian Transylvania: rusticated stucco at street level, pronounced window surrounds on the first floor, and carved mascaron faces worked into the ornament. Corner bays step up from paired windows on the first floor to triple windows on the second, under scroll-console balconies.
Inside, the city’s heritage record notes a later glass-roofed salon with a retractable roof, added as Sibiu’s hotel trade modernized between the wars. The rest of the interior keeps the plan of a late-nineteenth-century commercial hotel: restaurant, function rooms and guest floors arranged around the same footprint the 1894–95 rebuild established.
Key facts
- Site occupied since: at least 1544, as an inn; renamed “Împăratul Romanilor” in 1783
- Current building: built 1894–1895, opened 7 September 1895
- Architect: Friedrich Maetz
- Financed by: Hermannstädter Allgemeine Sparkassa (Banca Generală pentru Economii)
- Location: Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 4, historic center of Sibiu
- Status: listed on Sibiu’s municipal heritage building inventory; operating hotel
Practical information & getting there
The hotel is inside Sibiu’s pedestrianized historic center, within walking distance of Piața Mare and the Brukenthal Museum. Sibiu International Airport is about 6 km away. Reservations and event inquiries go through the hotel directly.
Sources & resources
- Adevărul — “Pietonala din centrul Sibiului” (inn founding 1544, 1783 renaming, 1891 demolition, 1895 opening)
- Turnul Sfatului (Sibiu local press) — same events, independent corroboration
- Tribuna.ro, citing historian Răzvan Pop — Liszt (1846), Johann Strauss (1847) and Brahms/Joachim (1879) concert dates and stays
- Construcții Smart — architect Friedrich Maetz and financing institution (German name)
- Patrimoniul istoric și arhitectural Sibiu (municipal heritage portal) — building record, Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 4: patrimoniu.sibiu.ro/cladiri2/balcescu/199
- Official site: imparatulromanilor.ro / sibiu.imparatulromanilor.ro
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