Alba Iulia - Rimetea - Cluj Napoca - Turda
Day Three - Turda
This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen folks! Think about this for just a minute if you will...the earliest recordings of this mine go back to the year 1075 - Nearly ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO!!! Table salt was mined here from this time until the early to mid-twentieth century. It was closed and sealed shut in 1932. During World War II though, the mine was reopened and used to provide refuge to the local population during air strikes.
From about 1950 until 1992, the mine was used to store cheese for a local company. In 1992, the mine underwent restoration and was reopened as a tourist attraction. Then in 2010, it was refurbished with an amusement park at the bottom with spas and salt baths, and health resorts at the top. The park has a lake where you can rent a paddle boat and sail around it the water that is 3-28m deep. There is mini-golf, ping pong tables, bowling, and even a Ferris wheel!
Salina Turda
We start our descent down the 112 meter (367 ft) deep conical shaft - the only vertical mine in Romania.
The moist air causes the walls to continuously weep salt. It accumulates on anything that doesn't move.
The trolley machine above is described in detail on the sign below. It is the only machine of its type in Europe and was driven by teams of horses. Reading the sign and doing research showed what a terrible life it must have been as a miner or as a horse. The horses went blind after two weeks and had to be retired (?) after six months.
Below is the quality of pictures I could get because it is very dark inside the mine, sorry about this. I've included pictures of what I saw there though. Please go to the link and see for yourself.
Back to my pictures....if you want to take nice pictures, they need to tuen up the lights!
This is the elevator and next to it the stairs where you can climb the 13 flights - I took the elevator!
Well, we made it back up to the top and started our ascent out of the shaft. It was a great experience - one I think I can comfortably say no one I will ever know will have done.
Once we reached the top, it was time for lunch. Near the Salina Turda is a very nice restaurant where I sat down and enjoyed one of the more traditional Romanian meals - Sarmale (sar-maal-ay) or stuffed cabbage roles and polenta w/sour cream. YUMMY!!!
Finished with our trip, it was time to head home to Deveselu. On the way though, I was able to get some GREAT pictures of the mountains with the new fallen snow. While we were getting rained on, the peaks just east of us were being hit with some deep snow.
This is a view from the Turda Gorge looking to the east. The following pictures are from the rest stop while I got my coffee and lunch.
We dropped Nicu off well before we reached Caracal so he could get home to his family in Bucharest faster and sooner. We bid farewell until next time and said our goodbyes. He invited me to come to his home and spend a weekend to experience native Romanian living. I kept saying I'd love to see inside a typical home (especially a Gypsy home). He said I could go and see how they live every day. I'll be taking him up on that at the end of the month.
After we started down the road again, we saw a lot of people with tables in front of their houses. On the tables were vegetables from their gardens, home grown herbs like basil and thyme, flowers, cherries, and then there were bottles...hmmm? What's in the bottles? Could this be palinka? Palinka is a traditional fruit brandy that originated here in what used to be Hungary and is now the Carpathian basin. It is distilled fruit spirits, mainly plums, apricots, apples, pears, cherries, and what I've had at No Name - blueberries. So we stopped at a table where three old chubby women were sitting who looked like they were pulled straight out of the Communist era. Between Stefania and I, we learned they had homemade red wine, two types of white wine, and plum palinka - I wasn't leaving without a bottle. I bought the smallest they had (almost half a gallon). We wished them well and proceeded to the base, arriving just after 9:00 pm.
This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen folks! Think about this for just a minute if you will...the earliest recordings of this mine go back to the year 1075 - Nearly ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO!!! Table salt was mined here from this time until the early to mid-twentieth century. It was closed and sealed shut in 1932. During World War II though, the mine was reopened and used to provide refuge to the local population during air strikes.
From about 1950 until 1992, the mine was used to store cheese for a local company. In 1992, the mine underwent restoration and was reopened as a tourist attraction. Then in 2010, it was refurbished with an amusement park at the bottom with spas and salt baths, and health resorts at the top. The park has a lake where you can rent a paddle boat and sail around it the water that is 3-28m deep. There is mini-golf, ping pong tables, bowling, and even a Ferris wheel!
Salina Turda
We start our descent down the 112 meter (367 ft) deep conical shaft - the only vertical mine in Romania.
The moist air causes the walls to continuously weep salt. It accumulates on anything that doesn't move.
The trolley machine above is described in detail on the sign below. It is the only machine of its type in Europe and was driven by teams of horses. Reading the sign and doing research showed what a terrible life it must have been as a miner or as a horse. The horses went blind after two weeks and had to be retired (?) after six months.
I didn't take these pictures but this is Salina Turda.
This is the elevator and next to it the stairs where you can climb the 13 flights - I took the elevator!
I took a ride on the Ferris wheel because....I COULD!!!
The salt stalagmites were incredible - so long and delicate.
Well, we made it back up to the top and started our ascent out of the shaft. It was a great experience - one I think I can comfortably say no one I will ever know will have done.
Once we reached the top, it was time for lunch. Near the Salina Turda is a very nice restaurant where I sat down and enjoyed one of the more traditional Romanian meals - Sarmale (sar-maal-ay) or stuffed cabbage roles and polenta w/sour cream. YUMMY!!!
Finished with our trip, it was time to head home to Deveselu. On the way though, I was able to get some GREAT pictures of the mountains with the new fallen snow. While we were getting rained on, the peaks just east of us were being hit with some deep snow.
This is a view from the Turda Gorge looking to the east. The following pictures are from the rest stop while I got my coffee and lunch.
The trip home wasn't without a little fun though, along the way we stopped for a coffee break at a Subway! I bought a 6" BLT and a grande Cafe Americana (what else?). Even the Romanian laughed when I ordered it... It cost all of $3.50 so I was a happy camper.
\
We dropped Nicu off well before we reached Caracal so he could get home to his family in Bucharest faster and sooner. We bid farewell until next time and said our goodbyes. He invited me to come to his home and spend a weekend to experience native Romanian living. I kept saying I'd love to see inside a typical home (especially a Gypsy home). He said I could go and see how they live every day. I'll be taking him up on that at the end of the month.
After we started down the road again, we saw a lot of people with tables in front of their houses. On the tables were vegetables from their gardens, home grown herbs like basil and thyme, flowers, cherries, and then there were bottles...hmmm? What's in the bottles? Could this be palinka? Palinka is a traditional fruit brandy that originated here in what used to be Hungary and is now the Carpathian basin. It is distilled fruit spirits, mainly plums, apricots, apples, pears, cherries, and what I've had at No Name - blueberries. So we stopped at a table where three old chubby women were sitting who looked like they were pulled straight out of the Communist era. Between Stefania and I, we learned they had homemade red wine, two types of white wine, and plum palinka - I wasn't leaving without a bottle. I bought the smallest they had (almost half a gallon). We wished them well and proceeded to the base, arriving just after 9:00 pm.
I put the business card there to show scale...
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