Muntenia - Historical Province of Romania

Geography - Muntenia

Certified in documents as kingdom (principality) from the XIV-th century, Muntenia includes the territory between the Carpathians, the Danube, Siret and the Milcov rivers. This province has many important towns: Bucuresti the Capital of the country, Ploiesti, Buzau, Braila, Pitesti. Ploiesti is known due to the oil distilleries, mechanical engineering and chemical factories etc. and by the numerous musea (The Oil's Museum, The Plastic Art's Museum, The History Museum etc.) and also a lot of architectonic monuments - The King's church, the ruins of Sant Nicholas Church from the XVII-th century and the Visarion Church from the XVIII-th century. There are also inside and around Buzau town a lot of wonderful places and touristic objectives. There are famous by the bathing place Monteoru (Baile Monteoru), the mud volcanoes of Berca-Paclele, Pietroasele with its well-known wines and where the treasure "The brood Hen with Golden Chickens" was found. Braila is one of the main fluvial port of the country. Pitesti is on the Arges river's side and has historical monuments such as: The King's church from the XVII-th century with two-storied church porch and the Vierosi Monastery from the XVI-th century. Other important towns are Slobozia (agriculture centre on the left side of the Ialomita river), Calarasi, Alexandria, Giurgiu (transit port on the left side of the Danube and connection point with Bulgaria on the bridge of 2200 m lenght over the Danube).

This historical province has two marvellous touristic zones. The first one is the Prahova Valley and the other one is the Arges Valley. The Prahova Valley is the best known and visited touristic zone of Romania, having numerous health resorts (Breaza, Sinaia - named also "The Carpathians'Pearl", Busteni, Predeal) from where you can go up to the Bucegi Mountains with the cable railway (from Sinaia or Busteni).

On the Arges Valley you can visit Curtea de Arges town with the famous monastery built in Byzantine style during Neagoe Basarab's reign, the King's place and church, the Vidraru dam and the artificial lake with the same name. From here the tourists have the possibility to pass over the highest mountains of Romania (the Fagaras Mountains) on a road named "Transfagarasan".