Hermitages, raised by monks – hermits, lovers of quiet, constrained to make cells or small chapels for prayer, often in isolated places and hard to break, sometimes through huge rocks, away from enemies and fire, represents an important part of the monastic establishments which have withstood the vicissitudes of time, becoming places around which grew the religious life of places where, hundreds of years ago, they were placed.

Such hermitages, arose first as cloisters, are around the massive Ceahlău, the Mount Athos of Romanians, some of them due to royal donations and reinforcements, of development and their importance, gaining the status of a monastery.

We invite you to visit them during your stay in Neamt County.

Hangu Hermitage, which received the status of a monastery in the seventeenth century, being at that time a major monastery surrounded by a wall with four towers on each corner, is the successor of  Sylvester’s hermitage founded in the years 1600 as a hermitage. Hangu Hermitage has a history as old as it is interesting that you can get acquainted onsite, first it was wrote about by German publicist, Wilhelm von Kotzebue, Aspazia`s husband, sister of the Cantacuzino princes. These ones have banished the monks and transformed the monastery into palace. The ruins of the Princely Palace can still be seen today. Hangu Hermitage and Princely Palace are otherwise present in the books of writers who have halt at Hangu: Jean Alexandre Vaillant – French writer, Vasile Alecsandri, Gheorghe Asachi, Alexandru Vlahuță or Alecu Russo. About these places, Alexandre Dumas wrote in the novel ” Carpathians Ghost ” whose action takes place around the square tower of the Palace of Princes from the Hangu Hermitage.

 Hangu Hermitage is from 2004 on the list of historical monuments.

 Durău Hermitage, today a historical monument, was, in the XVII – XVIII, under obedience of Hangu Hermitage. It was first a monastery of nuns founded also in 1600, receiving in the meanwhile the convent status, as certified by a document in the year 1779. But, since the nineteenth century, the abode of Durău developed as a monk monastery. It had subordinated Bisericani Hermitage and Tarcau Cloister Hermitage. Durău monastery was disbanded in 1959. Here, you can admire, among others, the paintings on the walls of the church and interior wax paintings made by Nicholas Tonitza and Corneliu Baba with students and graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts in Iasi, between the years 1935 and 1937. Hermitage Tarcau Cloister located in the heart of the Gosman mountains, between Brateş and Ardeluţa in a secret place called Cichiva, is founded in 1833, when the hermitage church was consecrated, as attested documents. Also they say that the hermit monastic settlement, getting out from under the guidance of Durău Monastery, it was under obedience of Bistrita Monastery until the year 1900, when the hermitage obtain the status of an independent monastery.