Discover Bucovina

Why visit Bucovina

Bucovina is one of the most spiritually evocative corners of Romania — a green, rolling region of forested hills, fast-flowing rivers, and traditional farming villages in the country's far northeast, near the Ukrainian border. Its main draw is the extraordinary cluster of UNESCO-listed Painted Monasteries built in the 15th and 16th centuries by Moldavian Voivodes (princes), unique in the world for having their exterior walls completely covered in vivid Eastern Orthodox frescoes — Last Judgements, sieges of Constantinople, Trees of Jesse, parables of the Wise and Foolish Virgins — painted directly on the lime plaster and miraculously preserved by the dry, snowy climate for 500 years. The eight surviving monasteries are scattered through the Bucovina hills around the small town of Sucevița: Voroneț (the famous 'Sistine Chapel of the East', with its astonishing 'Voroneț blue' background), Sucevița (the largest, with its terrifying Ladder of Virtue fresco), Moldovița (the dramatic Siege of Constantinople scene), Humōr (the warm reds and oranges), and others. Each is a working monastery, with nuns and monks still in residence. Combine with stays at family-run pensions in the surrounding villages — the local food (mititei sausages, mamăligă polenta, brown trout fresh from the Suceava river) is some of the best in Romania.