The week was long and tiring, so it was a bless, that the weekend afterwards had three days instead of two: after Saturday and Sunday, Monday was a religious public holiday! It would have been a sin not to use the extended weekend for something more than just shopping and sleeping… But what to do? Well, the solution lies not that far from Cluj (actually 156km-s away). There are two thermal bath spa-s near Oradea: one of them is a modest spa, which is in fact so modest, that at the time of writing not even Wikipedia knew about it: it is called Baile 1 Mai (1st of May Spa).
(Photo from: http://www.turismland.ro/statiunea-baile-1-mai/)
We went to this modest spa the first day because of one important reason: it is easier to find accommodation in a place which is not so overwhelmed by tourists… or at least that is what we thought. We did not book in advance, we tried to rely on the fact that we’ll surely be able to find something on the spot. And oh so wrong we were… almost everything was full! It took us quite some time to find a single empty room, but eventually we did, and we were free to go have fun in the water!
The entry fee into the spa resort is 15RON(€3.50). For this you get… well I guess you simply get access to the water, nothing more. To say the truth it is not a bad price, the problem with it is, that once in, you are not able to go in and out anymore. This means, that if you get hungry or need a drink you need to buy stuff from within the spa-complex limits. Of course that is not cheap (in some cases even double than the normal price).
The surroundings themselves are not bad: you can lie down mostly on a grassy area and you have access to a few types of pools: small, warm water pools for children (and old people 😛 ), one single larger, cold-water pool and one deep circular pool for diving. There are two other pools: one large, circular and another one for straight-swimming with lanes, but those were empty. The water itself seemed quite clean, the problem is that because of the grassy surroundings it quickly gets filled up with mess.
After some swimming around and sunbathing (I am now suffering the consequences 😛 ) we decided to leave the complex and find a place to eat at. There are not so many restaurants in the area, so one needs to be quick and ahead of everyone else coming out of the spa-complex, to get an empty seat. The prices are good though and the food (one juicy pizza) was very tasty (or I was really hungry… I am not sure…)
In conclusion, the place is not a looker or too exciting, but it was just perfect for us to relax an do nothing after the long week. For people who wish for more: it has been bought by the same company who rehabilitated a bigger spa resort nearby (check out my next post). The plan is to upgrade also Baile 1 Mai to a better quality resort and to attract more tourists (not that there are so few these days…)
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