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 …

Vânători-Neamţ Nature Park
 
Stretching on a surface of 30,818 hectares, of which 26,300-hectare forestry fund, the park encompasses remarkable cultural and historical values partly highlighted on our way. Three natural reserves, shrouded in legend and natural charm, welcome the visitors: “Codrii de aramă” (common oaks), “Pădurea de Argint” (white birches), and “Dumbrava” Oak Reserve, which contains secular oaks, between 150 and 200 years old, the only oaks grown in Romania at an altitude of 450 m.
“Dragoş Vodă” Bisons and Carpathian Fauna Reserve
Once an iconic component of the Carpathian wildlife, the bison …

 
Neamţ Monastery
 
 
 
In the commune Vânători-Neamţ, 15 km north-west from Târgu-Neamţ, the visitors may find the oldest and most important monastic establishment in Moldova. Over the centuries, its founding fathers were the voivodes Petru I Muşat (1375-1391), Alexandru cel Bun (1400-1432), and Ştefan cel Mare (1457-1504), the last having commissioned here the most beautiful of the churches built during his reign, when visitors can admire the miracle-making Virgin Mary icon, painted in 665 in Israel [???].
Within the large and strongly fortified precinct of the monastery, there are two churches (The Ascension …