Under a marble slab in the nave sleeps Stephen the Great. Around him five centuries have gathered embroideries, manuscripts and bells, so many that Putna is a treasury with a church rather than a church with a museum. The Via Transilvanica also leaves from its gate: the first kilometre of one thousand four hundred.
If you only have a minute
The burial place of Stephen the Great and the most important place of pilgrimage in Bucovina. The poet Eminescu called it “the Jerusalem of the Romanian people”, and the phrase stuck. The voivode's tomb is here, the Via Transilvanica starts here, and here too is kept one of the richest monastic treasuries in south-eastern Europe.
What you find only here
The tomb cover of Maria of Mangop shows, life-size, the second wife of Stephen the Great, a Byzantine princess from Crimea. It is worked in gold, silver and silk thread, and her face is considered the finest piece of its kind in medieval Moldavian art. Putna's embroideries form one of the richest collections of the sort in south-eastern Europe, and the tower that kept them, built in 1481, is the only building in the compound that came through every fire without losing its contents.
The church is open daily. The museum keeps its own, shorter hours and closes earlier than the courtyard.
Stephen's church was rebuilt after fires and earthquakes, so what you see today keeps the fifteenth-century plan but carries portals and window frames from the age of Vasile Lupu.
You arrive in the courtyard and look around without knowing where. These are 5 places on the walls that people who know look for.
It is the only Moldavian princely tomb that was never desecrated and is identified with certainty.
The 1477 embroidery shows Stephen's second wife, life-size. It is considered the finest piece of its kind in medieval Moldavian art.
Built in 1481, it is the only building that came through every fire without losing its contents.
The original is in the Armoury Hall of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. The copy was made to the exact measurements.
The first of the 1,400 kilometres of andesite that reach the Danube. Every milestone is carved by a different art student.
Things that are less widely known, and that nobody tells you at the gate.
Legend says Stephen shot an arrow from Sion hill and the monastery rose where it landed. The museum keeps a piece of the maple it is said to have struck.
Built in 1481, it is the only building in the compound that came through every fire and every occupation without losing its contents.
The 1477 embroidery, showing Stephen's second wife, is considered the finest piece of its kind in medieval Moldavian art.
The original is in the Armoury Hall of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. At Putna you see the copy, made to the exact measurements.
The 1,400-kilometre trail to the Danube starts at the monastery gate. The first andesite milestone is right here.
the DN17 to Suceava, then the DN2H through Rădăuți
the DN2H through Rădăuți and Vicovu de Jos
DN2H
If you only have 30 minutes: The church and the tomb, then the treasury tower in the courtyard. Leave the museum for another time.
Quiet, but the weather turns fast at 700 metres.
The patron feast, the Dormition of the Mother of God, falls on 15 August: thousands of pilgrims, an altogether different experience.
The best light for the courtyard and the stone walls.
Open, with services from 4:30 in the morning. Whoever comes then sees the monastery as it looks without tourists.
a hermitage, with the relics of three saints canonised in 2016
a grotto cut into the rock, on the Vițău valley
the first walking stage of the Via Transilvanica
Suggested circuit: Putna → Sihăstria Putnei → Sucevița → Marginea, with a stop at the black-pottery workshop.
Yes. The guest house has rooms with two beds and their own bathroom, and rooms with more beds, from five up to twenty-eight. Booking at arhondaric@putna.ro, 0230 414 288 or 0756 639 606 (Father Isaac), between 9:00 and 19:00, Monday to Saturday.
Putna, jud. Suceava · 100 km from Câmpulung Moldovenesc
Further on
Hours and fees change from one season to the next, and those above are the ones published on the monastery's own site.
Book direct
No platform commission. Self check-in, late check-out when possible and free cancellation up to seven days before.
Via Transilvanica