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
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Piteşti is an important rail town, not only servicing the convergence of
many passenger routes, but also handling alot of freight from the car,
oil and petrochemical industry around the region.
A first class ticket on the excellent Blue Arrow service from Bucharest
is about 25RON, and well worth the extra 10RON or so over second class.
The 90 minute ride from Bucharest's North train station runs three times
daily; you can get slower trains during other times of the day if
needed, or if you want to stop along the way.
Locally, the Personal types of trains leave four or five times a day
to Curtea de Argeş and Câmpulung
Muscel, also departing from the
Piteşti north station.
Piteşti South Train Station, +40 (248)
627 908
Maxi Taxis and Busses
Maxi-taxis arrive and depart from several locations throughout Piteşti, and
most busses stop in at the main bus station, about two blocks from the
main Piteşti Sud (South) train station.
Both have services locally and to all
major near
destinations such as Bucureşti, Braşov,
Curtea de Argeş and all stops along the way.
Maxi-taxis also depart from near Piaţa Muntenia.
HINT: Be nice to your local taxi or maxi taxi driver! This
is the best way for you to get to nearby villages and sites, and a
little tip might help to get some good information on where to find a
taxi for your return trip! Tipping is an art form in Romania, so
learn it fast, and you will have great transportation everywhere.
You can use the bus service to go up to Curtea de Argeş
village, and of course, busses depart for Braşov,
Craiova, Râmnicu-Vâlcea and Bucureşti daily.
With the airport in Bucharest about 90 minutes away, it's the most
common choice for getting to Piteşti (plenty of
busses, trains and maxi-taxis depart for Piteşti around the clock)
If you are flying in from Vienna or
Munich, Sibiu is slightly closer to Piteşti
than Bucharest, and probably makes a more interesting stopover in
Romania too! You can maxi-taxi, bus or train to
Piteşti from either airport in Bucharest or in Sibiu.
Both airports have
domestic non-stop flights
from Timişoara as well, and non-stop international flights to Vienna
and Munich from Sibiu, and all major capitals from Bucharest.
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Hotel Muntenia
Towering over Piaţa
Muntenia, the Hotel Muntenia overlooks more traditional
architecture on the sunny square
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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
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