Curtea de Argeș Monastery

The church was built between 1515 and 1517 for Neagoe Basarab and is the most ornate piece of medieval architecture in Wallachia: a compact building faced in pale stone, with two of its four turrets set at an angle and twisted, carved bands and rosettes running around the walls, and a design that draws on Ottoman, Armenian and Byzantine sources into something that exists nowhere else. Its nineteenth-century restoration by the French architect André Lecomte du Noüy was drastic and remains argued over, since much of the visible surface is his work rather than the original. The building is bound up with the legend of Master Manole, the builder who according to the ballad had to wall his wife into the foundations for the church to stand, a story known to every Romanian schoolchild. Since 1914 it has served as the royal necropolis, and the tombs of the modern Romanian kings and queens are inside.

What you actually see

• The twisted turrets - the angled, spiralled towers over the porch.
• Carved stone bands - rosettes and cordage running around the exterior.
• The royal tombs - burials of the modern Romanian monarchs.
• Manole's well - the site attached to the builder's legend, in the grounds.

When to go

Year-round. The grounds are attractive in spring and autumn. Sundays and feast days are busy with worshippers and access to the interior is limited during services. Morning light suits the pale stone facade.

Honest expectations

The church is small and the visit short. The heavy nineteenth-century restoration means you are largely looking at a reinterpretation of the original, which disappoints purists who know the history. The interior is dark and photography is generally not allowed. The town itself has little else to hold visitors.

Nearby

Poenari citadel and the Transfăgărășan are north up the valley.