Salt mine in the Romanian city of Turda. The coolest attraction in Romania is the Salina Turda Mine
Street of a provincial Eastern European town. Cars and, suddenly, horse-drawn carts slowly roll along the snow-covered streets. In the center of the city, near a building that looks like a suburban railway station, guests of the town are freezing with colored tickets in their hands. A few minutes later, they disappear in the belly of the bus that has arrived, and again only the wind is walking around the empty stop.
The route of the bus and its passengers is much more curious. After driving only half a kilometer, the iron car dives into the blackness of the tunnel and begins to rapidly slide into the depths. A stop, a short descent down the stairs and a huge hall opens up before the traveler. This is Salina Praid - a former salt mine, and now an underground amusement park.
Salina Praid: a park with eternal calm and a church
Even on the bus, we begin to feel a specific smell, similar to a rich bouquet of minerals, in which the smells of dampness, salt and sulfur are recognizable. Surprisingly, this is what people come here for. The air here is considered incredibly beneficial, especially for those with lung problems, asthmatic attacks, and other respiratory issues.
On the threshold we are met by a small photo excursion into the history of the salt cave. Showcases are hollowed out right in the wall, in which there are items of the salt miner's inventory: old lanterns, helmets and picks. The main space is filled with... People! This place is like a park! There are benches where families have picnics, around the swings where children frolic. Huge area reserved for ping pong, bowling and badminton tables.
One of the sections of the huge space is dedicated to the church. By the number of shops, it is clear that real services are taking place here, the sounds of which are carried throughout the room. IN new year holidays appeared here interesting statues from wood.
Not far behind the glass is another room that clearly demonstrates all the greatness of nature: an unfinished collapsed hall. Like a slap in the face, it makes you remember that this place is nothing but our nature.
The second level of the salt cave was clearly left for the future. Only a small part of the underground hall is "inhabited" by people - a point is organized here Catering, desperately reminiscent of an average dining room. Right there, behind a neat fence, there is construction equipment.
Salina Turda: an underground city with a central square
The first impression of this salt cave is difficult to put into words. We got here after visiting Pride, but still, it is breathtaking.
It's not easy anymore Entertainment Center V unusual place and with useful air - this is a specially designed complex. Even in the parking lot, we were pleasantly surprised by the staff, ready to meet with foreign tourists and understanding English. Having bought tickets and walking along a long corridor, you get to the observation deck, from where you can see a truly dizzying panorama. Below - a huge space, which is filled with unexpected phenomena for the dungeon: football field, concert hall, many tables with board games, a Ferris wheel and even an underground lake, on the surface of which you can ride a boat.
Marble walls with salt canopies, well-chosen lighting with a combination of cold and warm spectra, as well as wooden houses create an impression main square present underground city. The second room surprised with its shape. In the rounded hall spilled salt Lake with a small island in the center, to which the buildings of the recreation area are stuck. On own experience we were convinced that a ride on a fragile boat on the water surface under a stone sky is an unusual and extremely fun affair.
In Romania, there are not only castles, but also salt mines, which are not only a place for salt extraction, but also a place of rest for local residents and tourists.
Most salt spas are the Praid and Slănic Moldova mines, it is worth talking about treatment and their infrastructure separately. But not so much is known about the Turda Saline mine (Salina Turda), it is definitely worth filling this gap.
In Transylvania, 30 kilometers from Cluj-Napoca is located small town Turda, it is unremarkable, except for the ancient salt mine, the first mention of which dates back to 1271. Salt mining continued at Turda Salt Mine for centuries, and it was only closed in 1932. For many years they forgot about it, at one time the 500-meter Franz Joseph Gallery was used as a storehouse for storing cheese. And then it was decided to restore the object and open it for tourist use, which happened in 1992. 
Currently there are two entrances to the mine, old and new, completely unremarkable and modern, the entrance ticket costs about 4.5 euros.
Going down the stairs or on the elevator to a depth of over 100 meters, you find yourself in an unusual gigantic hall and galleries, with excellent lighting. Incredible sensations, as if you find yourself outside the earthly world, in some fantastic territory. Hollywood director Christopher Nolan, amazed by the views of the underground mine, plans to shoot his next film in Turda Saline.
Those who visit the mine for healing will not get bored while underground. A stadium was built here, billiard tables and table tennis tables, a Ferris wheel, as well as a mini-amphitheater with a screen were installed.
IN Lately industrial tourism is gaining popularity all over the world. Translated into Russian, this means visiting objects of human activity. Moreover, these can be both modern operating enterprises, and places where only traces of his labor activity remain from a person.
Moreover, salt mines, in this long list, occupy special place. Salt air, which is in them, has a very beneficial effect on the health of a living person, and this circumstance is widely used to create a health-improving image of this type of tourism. There are such mines in Romania. We will mention only one from the Romanian list: Salina Turdu.
Salina Turda is located near the Romanian city of Cluj, next to the tiny town of Turda. It has two entrances: old and new. Now the new one is mainly involved, since it leads to the right point for better view main hall. But in order to get to it, you need to stomp on your legs a fair piece through the mine tunnel.
But after the tunnel is over, you will have an absolutely fantastic view of the huge hall, which at first glance really resembles an alien base. Designers and decorators have done their best here, creating an unearthly landscape.
At the level of the exit from the tunnel around the hall there is a circular balcony where you can walk with a goal and without a goal. For the rest, there is an elevator for descending to the alien base.
Having descended into the main hall, one should not delay for tomorrow, inhale full chest salty air, and continuing to continuously repeat this not difficult exercise, proceed to inspect what the local Picassos have piled up here.
The tallest object here is a deep-underground ferris wheel. There is a playground next to the wheel. There are also many benches around, on which there are many elderly people talking and reading newspapers. This local population, which enjoys throughout the local health-improving air.
It also has its own sports ground, where, if there is a quorum, you can play mini football or play table tennis. And taking into account the fact that during physical exercises the amount of oxygen consumed by the body increases significantly, calculate for yourself how useful physical education is in this place.
The far part of the hall, in addition to its unforgettable design, contains another surprise. In order to verify this, you should approach the fence behind the gazebo.
Approached? We look down. Yes, you are not mistaken, it really is underground lake with an island of aliens in the middle. If you're interested, then you need to get closer. We use the services of the elevator, which is nestled nearby and go down. There, already below, on the bridge we pass to the island.
Once again, we are convinced that this is not fantasy, but a competent setting of scenery and lighting. Nevertheless, in this pit, like nowhere else, you feel at a depth of more than a hundred meters. And in order to consolidate the sensations, you can rent a boat and sail through the underground lake, using rowing traction, as ancient as the world itself.
And the last thing: if some Romanian asks you about Salina Turda, then answer him honestly: "Salina is something, and Turda is cool." Search for cheap hotels.
How to get there.
The most convenient way to get to the mine is from the city of Cluj. A minibus runs from the latter to Turda. It departs from a stop at the intersection of Piata Mihai Viteazu and Strada Ion Popescu Voitesti streets. See the map below.
Drive to right place approximately 35 minutes. You need to warn the driver in advance that you need to go to Salina. The latter will drop you off near the entrance to the mine. From this place you can walk on your own in 15 minutes following the signs.
You can also get to Salina by taxi and car. The only thing to consider is that the entrance to the mine is on one side, and the exit is on the other. In the case of a car, you will have to get back to the car park. What is easy to do with a taxi.
Where to stay.
Grand Hotel Napoca is located in the popular area of Cartirul Grigorescu. The hotel has a wide range of services to make your stay as enjoyable as possible. The hotel features a 24-hour front desk, facilities for guests with handicapped, luggage storage, room service, meeting facilities to make your stay truly unforgettable. The rooms provide an optimal level of comfort with pleasant design and amenities such as air conditioning, heating, wake-up service, desk, mini bar. The hotel offers a wide range of recreational facilities. Discover all that Cluj-Napoca has to offer with Grand Hotel Napoca as the starting point for your journey.
The hotel is located in the most popular tourist area Cluj Napoca. The hotel offers guests a wide range of services and amenities to ensure maximum comfort. In the hotel you can always find services such as free wifi in rooms, 24/7 check-in, facilities for disabled guests, luggage storage, Wi-Fi in public areas. Relax in the comfortable rooms, with the offer of such services as Wi-Fi, non-smoking rooms, heating, desk, mini-bar. The hotel offers a wide range of recreational facilities. The Hotel Transilvania is an excellent choice for exploring Cluj-Napoca, or simply for a comfortable, relaxing stay.
Melody Central Hotel is located on Unity Square in historical center city of Cluj. It offers free Wi-Fi, a café and a terrace.
Hotel Ary is located near the center of Cluj-Napoca. At guests' service free WiFi and free private parking. The hotel has a restaurant where breakfast is served. Buffet and serves international cuisine.
located in great area City of Cluj-Napoca, the Hotel Belvedere, has easy access to everything the city has to offer outside of the hotel. Businessmen and tourists alike will appreciate the amenities and services offered by the hotel. 24-hour front desk, facilities for disabled guests, luggage storage, meeting facilities, restaurant are always available for the convenience of guests. All rooms are elegantly furnished and equipped with essential amenities. Enjoy the hotel's recreational facilities, including fitness center, sauna, indoor pool, spa, before retiring to your room for a well-deserved rest. Whatever your reasons for visiting Cluj-Napoca, Hotel Belvedere will make you feel right at home.
Salina Turda is a place that just made us go nuts, walking around with our mouths open, constantly repeating "oooooooo". I wanted to photograph something every second. Why - see for yourself.
Salina Turda is an abandoned salt mine in the city of Turda, which has recently been turned into a full-fledged underground recreational center. There are two parts - a medical one, where children play and improve their health, and a tourist one, about which I will tell you.
At the entrance, he is met by the sweetest worker, who, in perfect English (in Romania, everything is fine with this, unlike Hungary), says that there are three mines in Salina Turda, two of them are usually closed, but you can visit the largest one, and here you have a map . The temperature in the mine is always around 12, and the air is so healing that the lungs literally rejoice.
To get to the main sights, you need to walk a long way through the Franz Joseph Gallery, look at the salt veins in the walls and get used to the smell and the fact that I am the king of hdr processing.
As much as I don't like enclosed spaces, it's so comfortable in Salina, despite the fact that you're plunging into some eerie distance.
The first interesting thing on the way is the echo room. Repeats after you - 10 times, no less. Short obscene words are especially good. In general, as it turned out, this is the scourge of everyone who lives in a foreign language environment - it breaks stoppers very quickly and even the most intelligent begin to express themselves in full. 
Further down the course, the machine that brought the salt to the surface is the original working mechanism from 1881. She has 4 blades, to each of which a horse was tied. Looks impressive. 
In the walls you can see funny exhibits. For example, a lamp made of salt. 
There is even a church here. Guess what the altar is made of? 
But now we are getting closer and closer to the main mine, Rudolf's mine. And here it is: already breathtaking! It’s a pity the camera doesn’t convey the feeling: when you are under the ceiling, and under you there is a huge empty space and traces of picks are visible - everything was hollowed out by hand. 
First we go down into the narrowest shaft - Teresa (10 minutes along the narrow stairs and at the exit we get pasta legs). There is the most beauty - an underground lake, in the middle of which is an island with gazebos.
We immediately rent a boat (10 lei for half an hour) and sit down. The water is probably up to the thigh, but the sensations are cool. Especially when our boat regularly crashed into the walls - the echo was just thunderous. 
I sat down to pose and almost turned the boat over haha. 
We move to the main mine, and there is also plenty of fun: a souvenir shop, mini-golf with 8 fields (where we also got stuck for an hour), bowling, table tennis, a football field and even a Ferris wheel. 
There are places to sit and even lie down. And the coolest thing is that Wi-Fi catches better than we have at home in Budapest! It’s a pity that you can’t eat and drink here - so you hung out for the whole day! 
The town itself is very small and there is not much to see there. But the food is simply excellent and so cheap that you involuntarily start counting after the waitress: suddenly something was not counted. From Turda we went to Tirgu Mures to drive to Brasov and Dracula's castle the next day, but this is a topic for another post. 
How to get there?
The easiest way to get to Salina Turda is on the Alis minibus from Cluj-Napoca, which stops at bus stop at the crossroads Piata Mihai Viteazu and Strada Ion Popescu Voitesti. Ride 35 minutes, costs 7 lei, schedule
Medical mine in Romania July 20th, 2014
Here is what blogger evrikab writes
They say that if you go down into the mine for ten days in a row for four hours and breathe air saturated with sodium ions there, then bronchial asthma and other respiratory diseases recede. And if such a procedure is carried out once a year for 3 years, then these diseases go away for good. These are the unique medicinal properties the largest salt mine in Europe, Slanic Prahova.
Let's take a look at them in more detail
Photo 2. 
The mine has a depth of 208 meters and consists of 14 trapezoidal halls 54 meters high. One of the halls.
Photo 3. 
Instead of turning this mine into a first-class hospital and treating half of Europe in it, they are content with old and primitive equipment that is left over from the time when salt was mined in the mine (1936-1970). The descent into the mine is carried out on an antediluvian elevator, in which eight to ten people can hardly fit. Shaking and creaking (which is pretty scary), he lowers visitors into the bowels of the earth.
Photo 4. 
The mine has a constant temperature of 12 degrees and an incomparable specific smell is felt, apparently due to the presence of those same sodium ions. In one of the halls is interesting museum salt sculptures (author - sculptor Justin Nastaz). Bust of the leader of the Dacians Decebalus - the leader of the resistance to the Roman legions of Trajan.
Photo 10. 
The polished walls of the shaft look like marble.
Photo 5. 
Here you can grab a bite to eat with your own food. We did not see any "official" cafe or buffet in the mine. There are a lot of children among the patients - they put these swings for them.
Photo 6. 
There are no "official" souvenir shops at the mine either,
The situation is saved by enterprising merchants.
Due to the colossal size of the premises and due to the scarcity of lighting, filming in the mine
very hard.
Photo 7. 
What is the treatment in salt caves Oh? Salt adit is a horizontal or inclined underground mine working with access to the surface for maintenance of underground mining operations. Such an adit for the extraction of rock salt, located in Poland, already in the 19th century. was used for medicinal purposes.
The Polish doctor Felix Bochkovsky, observing the patients, noticed that staying in salt galleries lung disease patients benefited more than saline inhalation. Thus, a new treatment method appeared - treatment in salt caves.
Speleotherapy- method of treatment of diseases of the respiratory system, by long stay in natural microclimate conditions karst caves, salt mines, passed mine workings of salt, metal and potash mines.
Speleon- translated from Greek means cave.
The essence of the method lies in the impact on the human body of natural healing factors characteristic of the microclimate of the caves and determined by the geophysical location and chemical composition of the rocks of this massif. All underground speleological clinics, located in different climatic and geographical zones and having different microclimate parameters (temperature - from 12 to 24 degrees Celsius, relative humidity from 10 to 100%, aerosol concentration from 0.1 to 20 mg / m-3, its respirable fraction from 50% to 95%, air ionization from 500 to 20,000 ions per cm-3, etc.) have the same treatment efficiency.
Caves can be completely different: grottoes, mines, natural formations in the rock mass and in layers of edible rock salt, but regardless of rock, there is an increase in the immunohormonal status of the human body. From this it follows: speleotherapy involves the cure of diseases through strengthening the protective properties of the body, i.e. not the disease itself is treated, but the cause of its occurrence
Photo 8. 
How is the treatment in salt caves?
Before going to the caves and after visiting them, doctors conduct a thorough examination of patients. First of all, the pulse and blood pressure, respiratory rate, vital capacity of the lungs are measured, then the results obtained are compared with the previous ones. In caves (adits), patients, covered with warm blankets, lie or sit quietly. The time spent in a particular cave is different and depends on the depth of the cave, pressure, temperature and salt concentration in the air.
Indications for treatment in salt caves
Treatment in salt caves is useful for patients with respiratory diseases and asthma. It is believed that during one treatment course in salt caves, all bacteria in the nasopharyngeal cavity are destroyed and the condition of patients with bronchial asthma improves. Salt caves treat bronchial asthma, chronic catarrhal inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, emphysema, and chronic inflammation of the lungs. It is possible to treat diseases of the cardiovascular system and blood vessels, metabolic disorders and diseases of the digestive tract. It is also possible to treat rheumatic diseases, diseases of the joints and spine.
Photo 9. 
Why is being in salt caves beneficial?
There are practically no allergens in the cave. When pathogens, pollen or other substances that cause allergies enter the cave, they settle on its walls. In addition, the concentration in the air of the cave is slightly increased. carbon dioxide which makes it easier for asthma patients to breathe. With an increased concentration of carbon dioxide, the respiratory center of the medulla oblongata and chemoreceptors in the walls of blood vessels are activated, the exchange of gases in the lungs and oxygenation of arterial blood improve. Thanks to the specific air pressure, temperature and relative humidity, the condition of patients with respiratory diseases improves.
Treatment in the microclimate of salt caves is contraindicated for patients suffering from various phobias, especially claustrophobia. It is also contraindicated in patients with certain forms heart failure, angina, acute infectious diseases and epilepsy.
Where to get treatment in salt caves?
When choosing a resort for patients with bronchial asthma, it is necessary to take into account not only climate zone, in which the resort is located, but also the season, given the contrast of weather conditions and the time of flowering.
The effectiveness of treatment is affected by the season, as well as the form of bronchial asthma. Gives the greatest effect spa treatment atopic form in autumn - 96.7%, and smallest in summer- 86.8%, with an infectious-allergic form, the most effective treatment is in the summer - 88.3%, and the least effective in the spring - 79.1%. With a mixed form, the greatest effect occurs in autumn - 92.6%, and the smallest in spring - 76%.
It is not advisable to refer patients with bronchial asthma living in sharply continental zones to southern resorts autumn, since their return to the place permanent residence fraught with exacerbation due to contrast climatic conditions and reduced ability to readapt. Also, short courses of spa treatment, which are so popular today, are inappropriate.
Photo 11. 
Photo 12. 
