Step through the walls where a church locked up couples who wanted a divorce

Biertan's fortified church stands in the middle of the village behind three rows of walls, linked by gate towers. For nearly three hundred years it was the seat of Transylvania's Lutheran bishops, and somewhere in those walls is a small room they kept for marriages in trouble.

The way in is through the walls themselves, under stone arches and over cobbles.

Then the room. A couple who wanted a divorce were locked in it for two weeks, with one bed and one plate between them. They could leave early if they made up.

Biertan was the see of the Saxon Lutheran Church from 1572 to 1867, and in all that time, the church's tradition says, just one couple went through with the divorce. Sources disagree on the rest of the inventory: one adds a spoon, another a set of cutlery and a cup. Biertan and its church have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993.