Bucharest Old Town is famous for its restaurants, bars and pubs. Aubergine and Entourage (check out our spots!) are just a few examples of places you can eat or have a drink. But among all these places there is a little known spot – the Stavropoleos Monastery Church. The landscape can seem confusing because of the contrast between noisy joyful bars and the quiet monastery.

Stavropoleos is an Orthodox church with an old history that starts in the eighteenth century. Quakes have affected the monument and at the moment, from the old monastery, only the church survives, and next to it there is a 20th-century building.

The garden is incredibly beautiful and is a good place to rest for a moment and enjoy the silence. The interior of the church gives you the feeling of darkness and of inner peace at the same time.

Even fewer people know that some icons of Stavropoleos Church (the ones exposed to be venerated on great feast days) are painted by Ion Grigorescu. He is a very complex artist whose artworks have been exposed at Centre Pompidou (Paris), MoMA (New York) and other great museums and international galleries.