Turda, Romania

It's been two summers since I've been to Romania and I miss it greatly.  I was going through my pictures the other night and I started to reminisce about the time our group went to Turda.   

About 45 minutes south of Cluj-Napoca is a place called the Turda Salt Mines. These salt mines were a cool 50 degrees and an interesting diversion from digging foundation trenches. Actually, it wasn't that much of a diversion...the digging in the mines was just a little deeper -- about 134 meters deeper. <----Could you imagine having to dig this deep during the 6th century? 

It was pretty impressive to walk through salt mines that were functioning in the late 6th century.  The Turda salt mines were known as one of the most important in Transylvania.  In 1840, this salt mine started to decay due to the growing competition with other salt mines in the area, so in 1932 the Turda salt mine ceased all activity.  Then during World War II, it became an anti-aircraft shelter.  Now, it is a tourist destination and it is still very impressive!

Our group concluded our Turda activities with a "cool" hike streamside through Turda Gorge.  That is if you consider 100 degrees Farhenheit cool!  And as I recall, our group ended up breaking apart during this hike, which was not fun, considering we had to hike up a mountain without any gear and hopefully spot someone from our group. However, in the distance we saw a cabana, so we descended the mountain and shared a much needed beer with a shepherd and his dogs. The music was terrific, the palinka was SMOOTH, and the atmosphere light and laughing. 

Luckily, the rest of our group found us here and we were able to get back on the bus to go back to Cluj.