In 2011 a lime in front of a village church in the Szekler hills of Transylvania was voted European Tree of the Year, with 23,298 votes. It had won Romania's own contest first. Leliceni, Csíkszentlélek in Hungarian, sits a few kilometres north of Miercurea Ciuc, and the tree has stood before its Roman Catholic church for roughly five hundred years: the contest and Romanian national news both date its planting to the early 1500s. It is about 20 metres tall and 3.9 metres round, and the county declared it a natural monument in 1992. Its real claim is civic rather than botanical. By local tradition the villagers ringed the trunk with log benches and sat under the crown to argue out the affairs of the village, and wooden benches are said to stand there still. A tree that has served as the parish meeting room for centuries has heard more local politics than most town halls. Local tradition also says the tree and the church came through a Tatar raid that burned the village around them. Sources place that raid at various points in the 1600s and none documents it, so take it as the story the village tells rather than as history. The most recent reports we have found date from the contest years, around 2011 and 2012. If you have stood under it since, tell us how it is doing.
In front of the Roman Catholic church, Leliceni, Harghita county, Romania You can recognise it by its place directly in front of the village's Roman Catholic church and by a trunk 3.9 metres round. It is the big lime in the churchyard.
Free, in the churchyard of the village's Roman Catholic church, open ground
Village of Leliceni, a few km north of Miercurea Ciuc/Csíkszereda; no public transport detail found, best reached by car