Monasteries are where Romanian medieval art has survived best: princely and boyar foundations from the 14th to the 18th century, with painted churches, fortress-like precincts, museums of icons and embroideries, and the tombs of voivodes. The most visited are the painted monasteries of Bukovina, built under Stephen the Great and Petru Rareș and listed by UNESCO; the Neamț area gathers the largest communities of monks and nuns in the country, Oltenia has the foundations of Constantin Brâncoveanu, and Transylvania the pilgrimage sites of Nicula and Prislop. Almost all are working monasteries: visitors are expected to dress modestly and keep quiet, and some offer a bed for the night in their guesthouse. Parish churches, cathedrals, wooden churches and fortified churches are listed under Churches.
In Bukovina, Voroneț Monastery, Sucevița Monastery and Putna Monastery, with the tomb of Stephen the Great, can be seen in a single day. In Moldavia, Neamț Monastery and Agapia Monastery lie a few kilometres apart. Oltenia offers Horezu Monastery, founded by Constantin Brâncoveanu, and the Hațeg Country Prislop Monastery, with the grave of Arsenie Boca.
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Top 20The church founded by Stephen the Great in 1488, painted on the outside with the Last Judgment on a background of "Voroneț blue"; a UNESCO site near Gura Humorului.
The Movilă family's fortified monastery, built in the 1580s among the hills of Bukovina, with a church painted almost entirely inside and out and the famous "Ladder of Virtues"; a UNESCO site.
Orthodox monastery founded by Constantin Brâncoveanu below the Făgăraș Mountains: the church rebuilt in 1926–1946 on its old foundations, an icon museum and a new Brâncovenesc-style precinct.
The church built in 1530 by chancellor Toader Bubuiog under Petru Rareș, painted outside in shades of red, with an open porch and Vasile Lupu's tower; a UNESCO site.
The largest Baroque pilgrimage church in western Romania, its 67-metre towers rising above the Mureș, with a miracle-working icon and corridors covered in votive paintings.
Stephen the Great's foundation of 1466–1469, the site of his tomb, with the Treasury Tower of 1481 and a museum holding one of the richest collections of medieval embroidery.
The former metropolitan cathedral of Moldavia, built in 1514–1522 in the centre of Suceava and home to the relics of St John the New; its church of St George is a UNESCO site.
A monks' monastery south of Iași, founded around 1727, with the ruins of the Vovidenia church bombed in the war and a new adobe church in use.
One of the largest convents in the country, built in 1641–1643 in the Agapia valley, with a church whose interior was painted by the young Nicolae Grigorescu in 1858–1861.
A convent in the Iza Valley, built from 1993 onwards of oak and river stone in the style of the Maramureș wooden churches: a precinct with a ~57 m church, bell tower, abbess's house and gardens.
In the centre of Rădăuți, the Church of St Nicholas, founded by Bogdan I around 1360, is the oldest surviving stone church in Moldavia and the resting place of the first Moldavian princes.
A convent in Olt, in the village that Matei Basarab and Constantin Brâncoveanu came from: defensive wall and bell tower of 1634–1640, a Brâncovenesc great church of 1699, and a museum with a lapidary.
A sixteenth-century foundation of the Buzești boyars, tucked into a valley in Olt County: a church with the votive painting of Michael the Brave, the Buzești tombs and a brick enclosure wall.
The ruins of the only surviving Cistercian abbey in Romania, built around 1200 in the Early Gothic style, with its choir now serving as an Evangelical church.
A foundation of Prince Gheorghe Ștefan from 1655–1657: a dressed-stone church inside a walled enclosure with towers, near Onești; today a parish church.
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