Monastère de Cetatuia, Cetatuia Monastery

The founder of the Cetatuia Monastery was Prince Gheorghe Duca. The construction works started in 1669 and were completed in 1672. The church was surrounded since the beginning by tall stone walls, with ramparts and a sentinel's path, entrance and corner towers. A special place is the palace destined to the lodging of the prince, a fortified building characteristic to the XVIIth century and the kitchen or, according to other opinions, the Turkish bath which is the only construction of this kind that has been preserved within a monastic ensemble. The bell tower and the massiveness of the walls prove that the monastery was also conceived as a military guarded refuge, being a real 'cetatuie' ('citadel') in case of need.