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At the Salt Mine in Praid

by szbogi

(about Praid, Romania, added on Aug 21, 2007)

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At about 4:30 PM we arrived to Praid, a village (or little city, I'm not sure) which is very famous because of its Salt Mine which is a touristic attraction but it's used for medical purposes too.

It's not new that we didn't find any signs pointing to the mine. So we stopped in a dusty little street where we saw lots of people (we thought that there must be something if everyone was there:)). After walking a bit we observed that there was a bath with salt water and on the other side of the street there were many little shops where you could buy salt for cooking, salt crystals and other things. Finally we asked a woman where is the mine. She said that the place where we can buy tickets and from where the bus which goes down to the mine departs is at the corner. When we arrived a bus had just stopped and we were hurried by the driver to buy the tickets and step up on te bus because he stopped only for a couple of minutes and this is the last tour he makes. So in two minutes we were on the bus driving into the mine.

Before we started this trip Zoli was joking with the bus driver if there is air condition on the bus... There wasn't but we didn't need it at all. The bus entered a tunnel which was as wide as the bus, there were no lights so we couldn't see many things. After about 5 minutes something strange (it was strange for us, for the others not) happened: everyone started to put on clothes, warm clothes... some children even had caps and jackets, like it was winter:) we thought that some parents are too careful and we said it's funny... after a 15 minutes ride we arrived to a gate. Everybody went through it, so we followed them. The way continued, we had to go down on many stairs to arrive to the mine.

How do you imagine a mine? Small, dark, maybe a little wet and that you must bend down to go through it? Yes, we imagined it so, too, so we were stunned when we glimpsed for the first time that huge gallery into which we arrived. It was 14 meters high, 20 meters wide and a few hundreds of meters long. It lies 120 meters underground so the temperature is between 14-16 grades Celsius all the time.

After half an hour we were freezing:P But we were lucky because we could buy hot chocolate. It was so funny: outside were 40 grades Celsius and down here we were drinking hot chocolate...

There were many things to do while staying in the mine. There were benches and tables if you wanted to stay down and eat a sandwich, there were also toys for children, swings, tables for table-tennis, there was also a cafe, and I think some kind of restaurant and also an internet cafe.

In the other gallery there was a church and an other room where we could see a photo exhibition about Transilvania. There were also beauty-parlors and treatment rooms.

Everything was so amazing! You could stay down there all day long without getting bored. It was a pity that we arrived in a hurry and nobody told us that it's cold inside. After nearly two hours we went up. It was so bad feeling the warm and dusty air after the cold of the mine... Luckily the car was not too far and we had air condition in it:P So after some minutes we were on our way to Sovata the last station of our journey.

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1. Jul 15, 2007 At home, before the departure (Oradea)
2. Jul 15, 2007 At the famous castle of Deva (Deva) (