Bucharest Sightseeing

The Palace is an architectural monument having the façade dominated by traditional staircase balconies, and by the arcades and columns with capitals, specific to the "Brancovenesc" (Brancovan) style. 
The Brancovan style is characterized by integration of Baroque and Oriental features into the local tradition. Splendid examples are the Hurezi Monastery in Oltenia (Wallachia Minor) or the princely palace of Mogosoaia, both of which are lavishly decorated, with beautiful stone carvings, stucco work and paintings.
Mogosoaia Palace has also some Byzantine decorative features and adornments which join stylistic elements characteristic both of the Italian Renaissance and the Baroque.
Inside the complex, there is also a church built in 1688 and decorated by a team of Greek artists. The original interior murals have been well-preserved, including a painting showing Constantin Brancoveanu with his wife, Maria, and their four sons and seven daughters, all wearing royal dress.

Snagov Monastery & Lake
(Manastirea & Lacul Snagov) 
25 miles north of Bucharest
Built on an islet, in the Northern part of the Snagov lake, The Snagov Monastery has been an important cultural for Valachia during the Medieval period. Its first attestation in a document under the name of Snagov appears in a Court Charter of Mircea cel Batran in the year 1408, but there are opinions according to which here a religious shrine existed earlier, during the reign of Vladislav I (1364-1379). Anyway, on the island which hosts the monastic location, archaeological works have uncovered tools and pottery from the Bronze and Iron Ages, Roman and Byzantium coins, all of which are proofs for an old and uninterrupted human life on this island. 

Inside the preserved monument – who itself suffered numerous changes and restorations – one still can see frescoes from the XV century, and also the portraits of Neagoe Basarab and Mircea Ciobanul. According to some researchers, Vlad Tepes himself, killed in 1476 in in the forest close to Balteni village, was buried at Snagov. In this place the waters are very deep and there have been recorded many events, legends and tales, but also real happenings which remind of cases when the boats and the men oaring disappeared forever under the waters.
In 1853 a horrifying scene took place. A convoy of soldiers, with a mission to accompany some prisoners in the Snagov prison arrived by evening on the banks of the lake.
The commander, being in a hurry, loaded the mobile bridge with a very high number of prisoners, surrounded by soldiers. On the middle of the lake, the bridge broke down and it drowned together with its entire load. Nobody escaped, as the prisoners were tied together and hindered by heavy chains and handcuffs which brought them into the abyss and the soldiers were loaded by heavy guns and ammunition.
There is also a strange legend circulating related to a so called monastery fell down under the lake waters. Thus, the old folk in the Snagov area villages told that they have heard from their ancestors that on the location of the monastery on the island were once built another monastery, older and more beautiful. During a storm the church drowned in the lake, together with its entire bell tower.
This is why it is said that when the wind blows, and the waters are agitated, a sound of bells coming from underwater is heard. It is also said that a porch belonging to the old church was separated from its frame during the storm and sailed on the waters up to the Northern part of the lake, where an old monastery of nuns was settled. Hearing that the waters brought to the shore a wonderful porch with letters carved in wood and saints painted on it, the nuns went and took the porch, using it for the entrance in their monastery.
Even today there is no clear knowledge where that porch came from, but conclusion could be drawn that in the period when the Byzantium fell to the Ottoman power, the king of Valachia, feeling confident, powerful and master in his own country, could afford to build a religious shrine decorated with those beautiful massive carved oak porches, covered in gold foil and polychrome ornaments.

Caldarusani Monastery
(Manastirea Caldarusani)
Gruiu commune, Ilfov county
19 miles. from Bucharest to the north-east, on the shore of the lake with the same name. 
It was built in 1637-1638 (in 100 days sharp) by Matei Basarab on the spot of a former convent. The cellar to the right hosts nowadays the Thesaurus, where religious items are kept. A museum with icons painted by Nicolae Grigorescu exists there. 
Caldarusani Monastery architecture,  combines two architectural