Buila-Vânturarița

Buila-Vânturarița National Park was declared in 2005 in Vâlcea county, in the southern Carpathians, within the Căpățânii massif, and at some 42 km² it is the smallest of the Romanian national parks.

Its defining feature is a limestone ridge some fourteen kilometres long, the only formation of its kind in the Căpățânii mountains, which rises above the surrounding forest with vertical walls and culminates in the Vânturarița Mare peak, above 1,880 metres. The limestone has generated a well-developed karst, with caves, gorges such as those of the Cheia and Bistrița rivers, and a rock flora rich in Carpathian endemics.

The park also has an uncommon density of religious heritage. On its slopes and beneath its rock overhangs stand monasteries and hermitages of great antiquity, among them Bistrița, Arnota and the hermitages of Pahomie and Pătrunsa, many literally wedged against the limestone wall, in a landscape that has been a place of monastic retreat for centuries. That combination of limestone ridge, forest and eremitic life is what defines the character of the area, one of the least crowded in the country.