The Painted Monasteries of Bucovina are among Europe’s most extraordinary artistic achievements — a cluster of 15th and 16th-century Orthodox monasteries whose exterior walls are covered from foundation to roofline with elaborate biblical frescoes. Eight of these monasteries are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, with Voroneț, Sucevița, Moldovița, and Humor being the most celebrated. The frescoes were commissioned by Moldavian princes as open-air catechisms, allowing an illiterate population to learn the stories of the Bible through art.

What makes these frescoes remarkable is not only their vivid storytelling but their astonishing durability — despite five centuries of exposure to harsh Romanian winters, the pigments remain brilliantly vivid. The famous “Voroneț Blue,” a luminous shade of azure found nowhere else in medieval art, has been compared to the lapis lazuli blue of Giotto’s frescoes.

Pro tip: Rent a car and plan a two-day loop from Gura Humorului to see at least four or five monasteries at a relaxed pace. Voroneț is the most famous and should be your first stop, but Sucevița — set in a fortified compound surrounded by rolling green hills — is arguably the most visually stunning of them all.