Besides Dracula, Ceauşescu, and Nadia Comăneci, monasteries constitute a permanent Romanian brand, inextricably linked in every foreign visitor's mind to Romanianness. Specific to Moldavia and Bucovina—the Eastern and Northern parts of Romania—these monasteries have attracted visitors for the past 500 years. The person visiting a sacred site is transformed from being merely a tourist into a pilgrim. The painting “The Ladder towards Heaven” at the Pângăraţi Monastery, for example, highlights the importance of the mental and physical involvement of the tourist-pilgrim (...) as an interactive participant in the process of self-discovery. (shrink)