Neamt County Monasteries

We took this incredible one-day trip from Vatra Dornei and we made this pilgrimage to all the famous monasteries from Neamt County. Even now, after many years, I cannot believe that we made it in just 12 hours - to visit all of this thoroughly you would need at least one week, because each monastery is a complex of many buildings, of a more than one church, with very well cared gardens and courtyards, museums, libraries, guest houses, and hermitages.

We had the chance to admire the beautiful frescoes by Nicolae Grigorescu from Agapia Monastery, to feel the serendipity in front of Father Cleopa's Grave, and the peaceful atmosphere from the Varatec Village of nuns where the poetess Veronica Micle found her eternal rest.

After an ascending hike through the fir forest near Sihla Monastery, we found the cave of hermitage where Saint Teodora lived her last years in prayer, and in the vast, fortress-like Neamt Monastery we visited an ossuary and a printing press made of pear-wood.

It was a full day that even 8 years later seems out of this world, where the power of faith is tuned in to the power of nature, where the harmoniously integrated architecture mirrors the majestic forests and mellow meadows.