The beginning. The oldest stone church left in Moldavia, raised by the man who founded the country, with seven voivodes sleeping under its slabs. It is not painted on the outside and has no tower, because it comes from before the Moldavian style existed.
If you only have a minute
The oldest surviving stone church in Moldavia and the burial place of the first rulers: Bogdan I, the founder, Lațcu, Roman I, Ștefan I, Bogdan II. The architecture is late Romanesque, with pillars and arcades, with nothing of the later Moldavian style, which had not yet been born.
What you find only here
The oldest stone church left in Moldavia resembles nothing that comes after it: three naves divided by pillars and arcades, no tower, like a Romanesque basilica. In 1360, when it was raised, the Moldavian style simply did not yet exist. Seven voivodes sleep under the floor, among them the founder of the country, and their slabs were laid by Stephen the Great in 1479, with inscriptions that can still be read.
Open daily.
It resembles nothing that comes after it in Moldavia: three naves divided by pillars and arcades, no tower, with massive buttresses. The Moldavian style had not yet been born.
You arrive in the courtyard and look around without knowing where. These are 4 places on the walls that people who know look for.
Three naves divided by pillars, as in a Romanesque basilica. No other Moldavian church has this plan.
In 1479, Stephen covered the graves of his forebears with new slabs, carrying inscriptions in Slavonic that can still be read.
The founder of Moldavia, who died around 1367. It is the oldest identified princely grave in the country.
They support walls designed for a heavy vault, another sign that the masons came from a different tradition than the later Moldavian one.
Things that are less widely known, and that nobody tells you at the gate.
Raised by the founder of the state, some hundred years before Putna.
Bogdan I, Lațcu, Roman I, Ștefan I, Bogdan II and two others lie here, under slabs laid by Stephen the Great.
A basilica with pillars and arcades, a type never repeated in Moldavia: the local style had not yet appeared.
If you only have 30 minutes: The interior, for the pillars, and the slabs laid by Stephen.
The garden around opens up, and the town is quiet.
It combines easily with Putna and Sucevița, on the same road.
The best light on the stone of the facades.
Open; inside it is warm and nearly empty.
a town with an ethnographic museum and a market
the black pottery
the burial place of Stephen
Suggested circuit: Rădăuți → Marginea → Sucevița → Putna, a full day on the northern road.
Rădăuți, jud. Suceava · 85 km from Câmpulung Moldovenesc
Further on
Hours and fees change from one season to the next, and we could not confirm them from an official source.
Book direct
No platform fee, because there is nobody in between. You let yourselves in with a code, you leave late if nobody is coming after you, and if plans change you cancel free up to seven days ahead.
Via Transilvanica