Suceava

Voroneț is the famous one and the right choice if you only see a single monastery. Its west wall carries an enormous Last Judgment covering the entire facade, and the intense lapis-like background pigment is distinctive enough that the shade is known internationally by the monastery's name — and its survival through five centuries of Carpathian freeze-thaw winters, which strip paint off most exposed masonry within decades, is a durability conservators still cannot fully explain. Sucevița is the largest and the most complete — the fullest surviving fresco programme of the group, inside a proper fortified enclosure with towers and walls, and its north wall carries a celebrated Ladder of Virtue with angels on one side and a very different fate on the other. Moldovița is the warmest and most welcoming to visit, with a famous depiction of a siege of Constantinople rendered in sixteenth-century dress, and nuns who will usually explain the panels if asked. Humor is the smallest and the most intimate, without a tower, and its scale makes the detail easier to read than at the grander sites. Arbore is the outlier, unusual for having no tower at all and for the quality of what survives on its sheltered west wall. If you have one day, take Voroneț and Sucevița, which are the two poles of the group. If you have two, add Moldovița, and let a local guide fill the gaps rather than reading panels blind.

The five sit in a rough arc across the county's western hills, connected by good but winding roads, and they are not on a public transport route. Three options work. A hire car is the most flexible and the roads are undemanding. A local driver-guide for the day is the option most visitors end up taking and is inexpensive by European standards, and it solves the interpretation problem as well as the transport one — the panels are dense with narrative that is invisible without someone to point at it. Organised minibus tours from the two base towns are the cheapest and the most rushed, and they are the vehicle for the exact mistake to avoid. Dress modestly at all five: shoulders and knees covered, and women are usually offered a wrap at the gate if needed. Photography is generally permitted outside and restricted or prohibited inside, which is worth respecting without argument since these are working monastic communities rather than museums. Mornings have the better light on the important western walls, and the sites are noticeably quieter before the tour groups arrive from the towns.

Suceava town is unlovely in parts and holds one genuinely good sight: the Princely Fortress on a wooded hill above it, a substantial medieval stronghold with thick walls, a deep ditch, restored towers and a lot of ground to walk. It has been carefully reconstructed and it gives a much stronger sense of Moldavian power than the monasteries do. North of it, Putna monastery is the burial place of the region's most significant medieval ruler and remains an important pilgrimage site — a quieter, plainer place than the painted five, and a different register of visit. In the villages between, two crafts are worth stopping for. Marginea produces black pottery, fired in a reducing atmosphere by a technique that has almost vanished elsewhere, and you can watch it thrown and fired. Ciocănești, further into the hills, is a village where the houses are painted with white geometric patterns across their facades, individually and by hand, which makes an ordinary road through a valley into something unexpected. Both take under an hour and both are the sort of thing that makes the drive between monasteries the point rather than the gap.

Gura Humorului is the better base of the two: a small town in the middle of the monastery arc with a good spread of guesthouses, walkable and quiet, and closest to Voroneț and Humor. Suceava is the larger town, better connected by train and air and useful if you are arriving from Bucharest or continuing to Maramureș, but it is a working city rather than a pleasant one and the monasteries are further from it. Guesthouses across the county serve their own produce and the eating is among the best in Romania. Two nights is the honest minimum: one for the monasteries done slowly, one for the fortress, Putna and the craft villages. On timing, late spring through early autumn is the window — the roads are easy, the hay meadows are in flower in June, and the light is good. Winter is beautiful and considerably harder, with snow on the hill roads and shorter days. This is also the natural pairing with the wooden churches to the west, and the Maramureș guide covers that other northern cluster; the trip-planning guide sets out why the two belong on the same leg of a Romanian arc rather than on separate trips.