The lakeside loggia
Carved stone columns looking over the water.
Radu Ana Maria — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Al at Dutch Wikipedia — Public domain · Asybaris01 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Asybaris01 — CC BY-SA 3.0
**Mogoșoaia** is the closest and easiest — half an hour, a palace and a park on a lake. **Sinaia** is an hour and a half north by train in the Carpathians, with Peleș Castle, among the finest in Europe, and Sinaia monastery. **Brașov** is two and a half hours by train, a complete medieval Saxon town that can be combined with Bran Castle. And south lies the **Danube** at Giurgiu and the Comana wetlands. With only one day: Sinaia by train, because the journey itself through the Prahova valley is part of the pleasure.
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Mogoșoaia Palace stands on a lake shore fifteen kilometres north-west of Bucharest, and is **the most important surviving building in the Brâncovenesc style** and the best day trip from the capital. Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu built it in 1702 for his son, naming it after the widow from whom he bought the land. The style is clearer here than anywhere: an open loggia on carved stone columns facing the lake, friezes of stone foliage, a double external stair, and a balance between Italian lightness and eastern ornament. The palace has a history of plunder: the Ottomans stripped it after Brâncoveanu's execution, it served as a warehouse, and war damaged it. Princess Martha Bibescu restored it in the 1920s and made it a cultural centre that European writers came to. It now holds the museum of Brâncovenesc art, a large lakeside park, and the family church and burial ground. **Reached in half an hour by car or bus**, and the park alone is worth half a day.
Carved stone columns looking over the water.
A wide lakeside expanse around the palace.
Mogoșoaia, about 15 km north-west of Bucharest