László Varga

Two years ago I have written about a salt mine next to Cluj. This year we have visited another salt mine a bit further. The salt mine of Parajd (rom:Praid) lies just next to the salty lakes of Sovata (described in my previous post). It took us around 15-20 minutes to get there (including parking 🙂 ).

The mines of Parajd are not as spectacular and tourist oriented as the one from Turda, but they are much bigger and they have been used for medical reasons for a long time. The salt from these mines is much more evident on the walls and the halls of the mine (if you take away all “decoration”) are even more spectacular than the one in Turda. The mines are usually filled by a lot (and I mean it) of people enjoying the fresh, clean and more importantly: healthy air inside.

Getting there is easy: the entrance is visible while passing through the main road of the village. One can leave the car in a specially arranged parking lot (or in the shades next to the salt pools if you get there in time). The tickets can be bought on site (just look for the parked blue buses). An adult ticket price is 20 RON (€4.35), which is a fair price, I think, for the 1-2 minute bus ride into the heart of the mountain + the actual eligibility to enjoy the mine facilities.

It is recommended to stay at least on hour (it is best to stay two) so the interior is filled with playgrounds for children, free internet connection, a chapel and even a library (which we could not find though…). We have easily stayed one hour reading a lot of information about the mine, admiring the exhibition about the mine, taking photos and enjoying a cup of coffee.

After considering the visit finished one can just proceed to the exit gates, which can only be opened from the outside to protect the visitors from the outside traffic (buses and mining vehicles) and wait for the buses to arrive. This is the point where I have realized that this mine is an actual working mine: we have met some workers who were also waiting for the bus. It is only at this point (and probably the restaurant area) where one can spot the miners, the actual mining being done in some parallel chambers inaccessible for the public.

The buses have arrived in no time (although they have a fixed schedule, they came down more frequently to suite the visitors needs), but getting out to the sunlight was a bit of a disappointment from the cool (~15 °C) mine to the burning and dusty outside area…

I have uploaded some pictures here.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Romania, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.