Inside the Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș Monastery lie the tombs of Romania's royal family — a remarkable collection of sarcophagi that makes this one of the most historically charged sites in the country.
Queen Elizabeth (1843–1916), wife of King Carol I, was the first to be interred here. She was a patron of the arts who wrote poetry and prose under the pen name Carmen Sylva, and a tireless philanthropist inspired by Florence Nightingale's work among the war-wounded.
Queen Marie (1875–1938) is perhaps the more dramatic figure. Granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II, she married King Ferdinand and became one of Romania's most effective diplomats — her personal lobbying at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 helped secure the unification of Romanian-speaking territories into Greater Romania. She had a characteristic final wish: to be buried here, but for her heart to be placed separately in her beloved residence at Balcic (now in Bulgaria). The heart was moved after Balcic passed to Bulgaria, eventually ending up — during the communist period — at the National History Museum in Bucharest, where it remains. The story of the displaced heart has become part of Romanian legend.
The monastery itself is extraordinary: a 16th-century church with Wallachian and Byzantine decorative elements so elaborate they verge on the fantastical. Legend says the master builder Manole was walled into the structure by Prince Neagoe Basarab to prevent him ever building anything finer.