Ceahlău National Park
 
 
This park was declared a protected area in 1955, but the current limits were established in 2003. The 7,742.5 hectares of the park encompass the following reservations: Ocolaşul Mare (with the highest summit – 1,907 m), Poliţa cu Crini, Cascada Duruitoarea (30 m high) and Avenul mare (a spectacular sinkhole formed by waters in limestone).
Mount Ceahlău, Moldova’s precious stone, as the scholar Prince Dimitrie Cantemir called it in his famous work in Latin Descriptio Moldaviae (1716), has its share of spirituality. There have been sites of praying here …

 
The museum created in 1958 has been operating since 1966 in the formerly “Ion Kalinderu” Village Theatre, also known at the time by the name The Royal Theatre, because here in Bicaz, during the First World War, the Royal Family would watch performances in this hall, as they sought refuge with their suite.
The base exhibition has three distinct areas. The first is dedicated to the history of the Bistriţa Valley and illustrates the locals’ participation to great historical events, medieval churches, the foundation of the Bicaz and Borca Crown Domains. …

 
 
Cheile Bicazului-Hăşmaş National Park
 
 
Created in 2000, covering some 6,575 hectares in two counties, i.e., Neamţ and Harghita, the landscape of this Park is extremely varied. Visitors can find here an ample and spectacular system of gorges, caves, and sinkholes (i.e., 88 such “sinkholes”), steep slopes and waterfalls as well as a picturesque naturally dammed lake called Lacul Roşu. Equally varied is the plant and animal life, with some rare and protected species.
Approaching the area from Bicaz, the wild view of Şugău Gorges welcome the visitors. In this genuine “outdoor museum”, …

 
Petru Vodă Monastery
 
 
 
It is located in a clearing, 6 km away from DN 15B that connects the Poiana Largului crossroads coming from Târgu-Neamţ. Although recently built (1991), the monastery bearing many of the medieval style elements, has quickly become a place for pilgrimage. It is also the only church with outside painted walls in the Neamţ county. In 2006, father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, one of the most active anti-Communist dissidents, a former cellmate of the founder of this holy place, was buried here.
 
Photo Album
 
 
Video
 
 

 
Sihăstria Monastery
 
 
 
Continuing our itinerary, only 3 km away, we come across one of the most blessed hermitages of the area, where the hermits secluded here from the Neamţ and Secu monasteries spent their life in humbleness and prayer, seeking peace and solitude.
Later on, the bishop Ghedeon of Huşi commissioned a hermitage in 1655, which was rebuilt between 1824 and 1826, of river stones and bricks owing to the efforts of Veniamin Costache, the Metropolitan Bishop. The then newly built church, dedicated to The Virgin’s Birth, was built in the classical …

 
Secu Monastery
 
 
 
The beginnings of the old monastic settlement in the commune of Vânători-Neamţ are connected to the hermitage Zosima the hermit settled here in 1530. The small church of the hermitage was commissioned by Prince Petru Rareş (1527-1546), on the site of the current church in the monastery graveyard. Then, Nestor Ureche, the high “vornic” [Minister of Internal Affairs] and father of the chronicler Grigore Ureche, commissioned a new church, in 1602, dedicated to St John’s the Baptist Beheading, and part of the households implements necessary to the monastic community.
The …