On one of the peaks of the Gropu mountain, which drops steeply into Jiu, in a wide meadow called “Locuri Rele”, at an altitude of 750-800 m, there is the Locurele Hermitage. You can get there in an hour’s walk on the road set up by the forestry operations. It is located at a difference in level of 350 m and at a distance of 0.5 km on the serpentine road. It was built in 1850-1852 from wood and after 1855-1858 it was rebuilt from brick in the form in which it is found today.
The clearing in which it is built is guarded by Mount Sliva to the south and the peaks of Parâng to the northeast.
The architecture of the church with 1 m thick walls has a trilobed shape with a spire with polygonal faces, well proportioned to the walls. The church has no tent.
Every year, numerous visitors/believers gather here to participate in the patron saint’s service, while also enjoying an extraordinary landscape. The hermitage is also an intermediate point in the hike on the thematic route “Defileul Jiului and its treasures”.
