Going from Arefu to the west, on Via Valahia, after 10 km, you will arrive in the commune of Salatrucu, on the Topolog Valley, described by Alexandru Odobescu in 1860 as a “beautiful valley of lights winding on Topolog, surrounded by thousands of hills rising one above the other, covered with fields and forests until facing the snow-capped mountains that disappeared into the clouds….”.

Within the Salatrucu commune is the village of Valeni, where hidden among the forests, you will find the Valeni hermitage.

Objectives:

The Valeni Hermitage has an impressive history, first mentioned in a document from 1536. Over the centuries, three churches have been built at the Valeni Hermitage.

The first church was built at the founding of the hermitage by the Grădineştenii boyar family in the period 1691-1692, more precisely by Zaharia Grădişteanu.

Nearly 100 years after its founding, during the Russo-Turkish War from 1788 to 1793, the Valeni Hermitage was almost destroyed. The Bishop of Arges – Iosif I – transferred the last remaining monks to the Robaia Monastery, and at the Valeni Hermitage, he brought nuns from various abolished hermitages.

The second church was erected in 1883-1884 but was destroyed in the earthquake of 1940.

The third and current church was rebuilt from the ground up after the earthquake of 1940.

The hermitage’s cells represent an authentic model of traditional peasant architecture.

At the Valeni Hermitage, there used to be a building destined for the weaving workshops of the nuns who used to live thanks to the cotton fabrics and carpets they produced. There were two types of looms, a larger one for Oltenian carpets and another for cotton fabrics.

Currently, the nuns at Valeni work on priestly vestments.

Here, at the Valeni Hermitage, there is a house where the parents of G. Topîrceanu lived, and he himself stayed there during the early part of his life.

George Topîrceanu was born on March 20, 1886, in the “Elena Doamna” Shelter in Bucharest, where his mother, Paraschiva, worked as a carpet weaver. This occupation brought her to the Valeni Monastery, where the nuns had weaving workshops. George Topirceanu attended three primary classes in Suici.

His mother worked at the Valeni Monastery as a carpet weaver. In the third grade, he composed his first verses and then called a classmate behind the school where he read a few lines from a poem. It ended with the verses: “Come on, Romanian brothers/ Let’s charge into the pagans.” The classmate to whom George Topârceanu recited these verses said, “What will you give me not to tell the teacher?” The poet’s reaction was prompt: “Two slaps on the face.”

George Topirceanu is known as a poet for his Merry and Sad Ballads, among which the most famous is probably “The Ballad of a Small Cricket.”

Continuing north on the Topolog Valley on a forest road of 33 km, you can reach the foothills of Negoiu, which was considered for a long time to be the highest mountain in Romania.