The most beautiful religious buildings Southeast

The monastery was built in 1645 by the wealthy boyar Danciu Pârâianu. Access is through a large carved wooden portal. A tree-lined driveway leads to the buildings. In the center of the courtyard, surrounded by beautiful white buildings with flowers, is the small monastery church. The interior is particularly rich, with touches of Brâncovenesc architecture, icons and ^18th-century murals. The monastery boasts a rich collection of 600 icons on wood and glass from the ^18th and ^19th centuries.

It is especially for this magnificent building that one comes to Horezu. It is located 5 km north-east of the village, in Romanii de Jos, in the middle of a beautiful landscape of medium mountains covered with forests. It can be reached by climbing a beautiful tree-lined driveway. Built by the Wallachian voivode Constantine Brâncoveanu between 1690 and 1697, this monastery, the largest religious complex he built, sums up very well the architecture and style desired by the prince, both sober and sumptuous. The exterior galleries with sculpted pillars and white monastic cells surround two courtyards.

In the centre of the second courtyard is the large church (1694), the outer walls of which are decorated with sculptures. The interior is decorated with beautiful, brightly coloured paintings, including religious scenes. In the pronaos there is a portrait gallery, where Brâncoveanu, surrounded by his relatives and ancestors, can be recognised. The prince had planned to turn this church into the family necropolis, as evidenced by his carved marble tomb, also located in the pronaos. Beheaded by the Ottomans, the voivode was finally buried in the new Church of St. George in Bucharest. The monastery also housed a cultural centre in the 17th and 18th centuries, where people came to learn painting and sculpture. It was restored between 1960 and 1975 and more recently after its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995.

The monastery museum exhibits works painted on wood and old books.

Its date of birth is unknown, but probably before 1500. In any case, it's the city's oldest church. It was the church of the great boyar families, and also served as the city's defense tower. After damage caused by the January 1838 earthquake, it was completely rebuilt in 1889 by French architect Lecomte du Nouÿ, who has other church reconstructions to his credit in the country, such as Curtea de Argeș. Byzantine in style, its brick "stripes" make it very elegant.

3 km north of Frâncești, in the hamlet of Dezrobiți, the Dintr-un Lemn monastery is located on the banks of a small river, at the end of an alley lined with weeping willows. More friendly and welcoming than any of its neighbors, it's sure to enchant you. After passing through a portal decorated with paintings depicting Saint Peter and marine motifs, you enter a first courtyard, full of flowers, with a well and beautiful white monastic buildings. Passing under another porch and next to an unexpected sea anchor (the monastery protects sailors and aviators, who come here to meditate), you enter the second, smaller courtyard, which houses the most recent church, with its beautifully decorated walls. A little further up, past the Pope's house, orchards and frolicking cats, you come to a small wooden chapel surrounded by tall, old oak trees. The chapel, founded in 1635, gave its name to the monastery. Indeed, Dintr-un Lemn means "of a single wood", and it is said that the trunk of a single oak was enough to build it! The paintings inside the church, a little darkened by candle smoke, date from the early ^18th century. Its iconostasis, carved from limewood in 1814, is a true work of art, as are many of the wooden icons that adorn the church.

The monastery is also associated with a love story. The writer Anton Pann is said to have fallen in love with a 16-year-old nun here, disguising her as a boy in order to kidnap her.

Right on the banks of the river Olt, this monastery is one of the most remarkable monuments of Romanian medieval architecture. The church was built by Mircea the Elder (Mircea cel Bătrân) in 1388. Mircea can be seen in knightly garb on one of the original frescoes in the nave. His tomb is also located here. Various elements and two chapels were added later, notably during the reign of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu. The monastery also includes a small museum displaying ^17th-century cult objects and manuscripts. The view of the complex from the banks of the river Olt is particularly impressive, with its white buildings resting on stone buttresses.

A little further north, on the other bank of the Olt, you'll see the ruins of a Roman fortress (castrum Arutela), built under Emperor Hadrian in 138.

Further north, on the same bank as the Roman fortress, the Turnu monastery was built in 1676 and rebuilt in 1933 after a fire. Nearby, monks' cells have been carved out of the rock.

Near the center of Călimănești, don't miss the Ostrov monastery, built in 1522 on an island in the middle of the Olt(ostrov means "river island"). A small bridge provides easy access. It features ^18th-century paintings. All around, the park, planted with trees and flowers, is very pretty. The location of the complex on the Olt river is truly privileged and well worth the detour.