So
many tourists, Romanian and American alike, make the sad mistake of
just driving through Piteşti on their ways to
Sibiu, Braşov or Bucureşti.
Despite it's past since 1966 as the home of
the national car, you'll find gorgeous pedestrianised malls in downtown
Piteşti with delightful squares and great shopping,
and home to the famous Tulip Festival.
Nestled a valley on the right bank of the Argeş
river, the clubs, restaurants, cafes and hotels
of downtown Piteşti make this proud capital of
County Argeşa great
base for exploring the surrounding area.
Piteşti fulfils it's role as a market town
each weekend, as the surrounding townsfolk and villagers flock to the
regional centre to bring their wares and foodstuffs to market, with
the annual tulip festival the highlight
of the holiday calendar.
Piteşti's sister city in America is Springfield,
Ohio!
Almost all of the sights of tourist interest are within a block
or two of the central Piaţa Muntenia, just off
the main shopping mall of Strada Victoriei (blocked
off to traffic for about 3 blocks downtown).
The County Museum, Prince's Church, 1907 Peasant Uprising Monument and
many main-line hotels, restaurants, pubs and cafes are around
Piaţa Muntenia, as well as the main train ticketing
office, banks, and internet and phone services.
Drink Up!
The city is surrounded by hills, being the center of an area rich
in wineries and plum orchards. The latter give one of the finest Romanian
ţuicas: Ţuica de Piteşti.
The Ştefăneşti winery, situated on the opposite bank of the
Argeş River, is one of the best known in Romania.
Road and Rail
If you arrive in Romania in Bucharest as most do, take advantage
of Romania's longest stretch of freeway, and hire a rental car for a
few days and drive the from Bucharest, about an hour on the all four-lane
restricted access freeway.
Your car can also allow you to travel into the mountains beyond
the rail lines to Lake Vidraru and north to the Făgăraş
mountains, or even do a circuit around the Făgăraş
mountains, from Curtea de Argeş to Bran, Braşov, Sibiu, and back!
Train buffs will enjoy the rail yards in nearby Goleşti,
with extensive rail yards and the junction of several important
rail lines.
The city is surrounded by hills, being the center of an area rich
in wineries and plum orchards. The latter give one of the finest Romanian
ţuicas: ţuica de Piteşti. The Ştefăneşti winery, situated on the opposite
bank of the Argeş River, is one of the best known in Romania.
If you have some information for us about Piteşti
or County Argeş,
please
Let us know about it now! We appreciate all of your efforts!
Any visitor expecting a grim industrial
city will be surprised to find a large regional centre supporting
the surrounding agricultural towns, complete with a delightful
central pedestrian mall!
Originally constructed in 1827, Saint Friday's
church was rebuilt in 1912 as a special project of local architect
Ioan N. Socolescu. Today, the church makes an ethereal
visage in any light, worth the walk to get some photos with
this great edifice!
Built by Constantin Şerban and his wife
Bălasa in the mid 17th century, this stoic looking
little church towards the southern end of the pedestrianised
StradaVictoriei looms
solidly over passers-by.
As a tourist, you should probably observe a few basic niceties whilst
entering and exiting a church. România is not exactly a multi-cultural
country as found in most English-speaking lands, and whilst you're not
really pretending to be Orthodox or particularly devout, there are a
few customary church habits which are almost more social than religious,
despite the reasons behind the movements.
So, perhaps crossing yourself at the threshold is a personal choice
(the Orthodox go from right to left on the final movement).
And testing your balancing skills on the way out can be a bit of fun
too, as you walk backwards out of the church, again crossing yourself
as you go down the threshold, and often, tripping backwards down the
inevitable steps.
Whether you choose to observe these basic points of common social
etiquette or not, most churches are open to the public with or without
your compliance to local customs.
The Trivale quarter to the south-west of the main downtown area
of Piteşti boasts verdant parkland, a small zoo,
and the grand Trivale Hermitage complex with grand portal, church, monastery
dormitory, and grounds.
Even during the autumn months, a stroll down the fairly grand parade
lined with tall oak trees is a spectacular sight, and in spring, of
course the inevitable tulips appear everywhere.
At str. Trivale, nr. 71, Pitesti
Church of Saint Friday (1827)
With a great little garden courtyard, brimming with flowers and
well-maintained plantings, the Church of Saint Friday is a delight in
the spring and summer months.
This shimmering silver and white example of early 20th century architecture
(it was largely re-made in 1912), looks like it would be more at home
on a wedding cake than in the middle of a city park!
The County museum in Argeş is just a block south of the main square
at Piaţa Muntenia. Certainly worth including
on your downtown Piteşti tour, this culture and
history museum does it's best to highlight all things
Argeşean as well as local history.
Like many of the buildings in downtown Piteşti,
you may notice there are perhaps fewer "old-old" building than in other
Romanian towns. The County Argeş is fine
example of the style of building common in the early 1900s after a series
of earthquakes (the Wallachian plains are prone to these) levelled much
of the town.
The series of collections at this museum include a reasonable natural
history section, but it's main interest will be to those interested
in the regional crafts and methods of production at the local vineyards
and orchards. If you're heading north later, the museum at Curtea
de Argeş offers a similar array of local treasures
and finds.
Like most of Romania's modern museums, the museologists here rather
roundly ignore the Communist era. You'll find that here, as with
most, history ends around WWII for Romanians.
Across the street is a monument to the 1907 Peasant uprising, and
if you come around April or May, it's surrounded by blood-red tulips,
a rather poignant and fitting tribute to the blood spilt in those terrible
years for the local villagers, who's successors still tend the same
plots today in the surrounding countryside.
Str. Călinescu 4,
Open Daily Except Mondays, 10am - 6pm. Admission 1RON
The Art of Piteşti
Sometimes the collections of great masters can be hard
to come by for cities like Piteşti. The
solution? Taking art back to the people with the Naive Art Gallery,
one of the finest collections of the exhilaratingly refreshing style
of local artisans.
Of course, on the more serious side of the art game,
Piteşti does enjoy a certain stature as home to some great works
of sculpture by George Călineşti and other notable
locals.
Each year during springtime, Piteşti is host to Simfonia lalelelor
(the Tulip Festival).
The Tulip Symphony is not only a symbol of Pitesti for 27 years
now, it is also a true mass phenomenon. Organized by the Pitesti City
Hall, “The Symphony”, as it is called, attracts thousands from all over
Romania, and increasingly, the rest of Europe.
Located in the Exhibition Hall of Casa Cărţii,
the three levels of the Exhibition Hall are decorated with different
indigenous seasonal and exotic flowers, garden dioramas, paintings
and different handicrafts, all inspired from the world flowers, tulips
or otherwise.
In 2002 Renault bought out Romania's iconic Dacia car company, both
modernising and strengthen the brand exported to over a dozen countries
from Europe, Middle East and Asia.
This added a hopeful and western-facing attitude to
Piteşti, with factory modernisation and the security
of a "big brother" backing the manufacturer's operations.
The introduction of the new model Dacia Logan in 2004 and subsequent
good sales levels have further cemented the future of
Piteşti as a home to world-class standards of
quality in the automotive field.
In mid 2006, the 250,000th Logan rolled out of the Dacia plant in
Pitesti, the main production site for Logan.
Also produced in Russia, Colombia and Morocco, production of Logan
will be launched in Iran this year and in India and Brazil in 2007.
The Logan plant in Piteşti supplies 35 of the 42 countries in which
Logan is sold, i.e. all European markets, together with Turkey, Algeria,
the Ukraine, Middle East and Central Africa.
The modern, reliable and roomy car has attracted customers the world
over and some 267,000 Logans were sold between September 2004 and May
2006.
It is proving highly popular in countries in which it is marketed,
in particular Western Europe, where it was launched in eight countries,
including France, in the spring of 2005.
Logan sales worldwide break down into 56% in Western Europe, including
Romania, 20% elsewhere in Europe (26 countries), 10% in Russia/CIS,
5% in Turkey, 5% in the Maghreb countries and 4% in the rest of the
world (mostly Americas, Asia, and Africa).
Museum of County Argeş
The vaguely impressive neo-classical
façade of the county museum, which
highlights cultural and historical exhibits of all things
Argeşean.
The Heroes' Gate
A fine example of classic Romanian triumphant
architecture, the Heroes' Gate commemorates Romania's contribution
to the Great War 1916-1918.
Western Argeş borders County Olt and the landscape
immediately south of Piteşti turns into fertile
alluvial plains from the multiple rivers and tributaries which flow
out of the mountains to the north.
This makes the sloping plains ripe for plums and all manner of stone-fruit
trees, which benefit from the solid winters and sunny early summers.
Mioveni just to the north-east of Piteşti (population
34,000) has the Dacia plant and a Nuclear Research Institute, that builds
components and materials for the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant on the
Danube, and also a high security prison.
Read More Here
The Cotmeana Monastery
Just 32km northwest of Piteşti on the road
to Râmnicu Vâlcea, the Cotmeana commune is comprised
of the villages of Zâmfireşti, Negeşti, Buneşti
and a handful of others, and features a
great old monastery
So much of the region in this largely agrarian zone is spread with
small monasteries and gorgeous old churches here and there, making it
in some ways like the hill country of Tuscany!
Founded in 1939 by decree of King Carol the Second, it was initially
named the Dinicu Golescu Museum. In 1966, it became the
Goleşti Museum Complex with the inclusion of
the Goleşti Feudal Assembly, and the wine and
fruit-growing museums.
The Golescu family were local
rulers who strongly supported the various revolutions for independance
throughout the 19th century. The house at Stefaneşti
was their summer country residence to escape the heat of the city.
Similar to the open-air ASTRA museum in Sibiu, there is also an
area behind the old house and the adjacent museum where buildings from
around the region have been gathered. You can stroll around
traditional fruit-grower residences as well as the odd church or two.
The exhibits in the museum, and the general standard of decor throughout
the old house are very good, and well worth an hour or two if you're
near Piteşti at any point in your journey.
The Golesti Museum Complex in Stefanesti, open May
to September, Daily except Mondays 9am - 5pm. +40 (248) 266 364,
cmgolesti@xnet.ro
Digimarc and the Digimarc logo are registered trademarks of Digimarc Corporation. The "Digimarc Digital Watermarking" Web Button is a trademark of Digimarc Corporation, used with permission.
All maps are informational only. No representation is made or warranty given as to map
contents. User assumes all risk of use. Rest Romania and its suppliers
assume no responsibility for any loss or delay resulting from such use.
Inclusion of links and examples of maps on other sites is for your
convenience only and should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the
owner/sponsor of the map site or the content of that site.
Have more info? Please Let us know!
Have a suggestion about activities in Please let us know here!
The
County Argeş Museum
Western
Argeş
Paralela 45, Bd. Republicii, bl.79, ap.4 in Piteşti
See a Road Map of the Piteşti Area
See
an Area Map of County Argeş