Călărășeuca Monastery

Călărășeuca sits on a bend of the Dniester in Moldova's far north below wooded slopes, a monastery traced back to the eighteenth century with a stone church of the Dormition and a second church added in the nineteenth. It was closed in the Soviet period and reopened in the 1990s. The setting is the point: the river, the slope above it and the enclosure between, a long way from any town. A spring in the grounds is credited locally with healing properties, and pilgrims come to it as much as to the churches themselves.

What you actually see

• The Dormition church - the eighteenth-century stone building.
• The river bend - the Dniester curving below the monastery.
• The wooded slopes - the hillside rising behind the enclosure.
• The isolation - a monastery a long way from any town.

When to go

April to October is the pleasant season. Winter is cold and the roads are harder. Feast days bring visitors.

Honest expectations

Restoration has replaced a good deal of the historic fabric. Facilities are minimal. The far north takes time to reach from Chișinău.

Nearby

Otaci is northwest, and Rudi is south.