Two things in the same small town. Horezu Monastery, founded in 1690 and the largest Brâncovenesc-style foundation in the country, is on the UNESCO World Heritage list for its architecture and its painted church. Horezu ceramics are on the UNESCO list separately, as living craft: the workshops are in the town and along the road, and you can watch the wheels and buy straight from the potter. The road up is the slow one — a two-lane national road over the hills rather than a main corridor — which is part of the point.
DN65C the whole way, north-east over the hills · 110 km · about 2 h 20 each way, without stops.
The journey
Distance
110 km from Craiova
Driving time
about 2 h 20 each way
Road
DN65C the whole way, north-east over the hills
What you pass
50 km · Bălcești
small town, the road narrows
75 km · Lădești
hill country begins
90 km · Cotoșmanu pass
the high point of the road
Out of the window
Off the main roads within twenty minutes. Villages strung along the road, orchards and hayfields, then genuine hills — this is where the Oltenian plain gives out and the Subcarpathians start.