After a pretty crap buffet breakfast, we headed off to the botanic gardens in Cluj to try and find some of these painted park benches Larissa was keen to find. Upon getting there, we noticed that most of the benches were in fact new. Still, being the highly cultural people we are(n’t), we thought we’d look around and take it all in.
Have to say, we were pretty impressed. The gardens were beautifully manicured where they needed to be, and left to be quite “wild” in places where it made sense for them to be. We looked through the enormous glass houses & numerous atrium and really enjoyed it. Saw a number of Australian plants which was pretty interesting too. No park benches to be seen though!
From the gardens, we made our way back into town to see in the daylight what we’d seen the previous night. We visited St Michael’s church, an enormous church built in the 1300s. We managed to time it just right that there was a church service in progress. We made our way in quietly after I gave the secret catholic handshake, we enjoyed the service for 10mins or so. The church is stunning – absolutely massive with beautiful stain-glass windows throughout, incredibly high celings with an impressive preaching area at the front, complete with kitted-out choir & alter boys and of course the priest.
We had a coffee @ one of the coffee shops/clubs across the road which was recommended by Wikitravel, Diesel, which is listed as the most expensive club in Cluj. $1.66 for a coffee seemed pretty reasonable though! Would have liked to go when it is a club though, the bottom level (2-levels down) looks like it was used as old catacombs back in the day. Very cool place.
Back to the hotel, checked out and off to Turda we went. Up until now, it’d been pretty uneventful with the car, the fact everything was the opposite to what I am used to and just to add to the fun, the car was diesel (only driven a diesel truck in the past); it was manual (right-hand gear changes? weird) and Romanian drivers are bat-shit crazy and the roads/signs are just as bad as they are at driving. Anyway, somehow I manged to find an intersection where it said I could go right, and as I went to, 2 different sets of traffic faced me – both coming at us! Apparently the turn-right arrow only meant you could turn right into a set of buildings. So I manged to work it out we were going the wrong way, managed 2/3rds of a U-turn so end up doing a 3-point turn, got the reversing done, then hit 3rd instead of 1st – car stalls. Not used to cars with a push-button start either so I hurriedly (some might say it was more panic-like) I get us going in a cloud of tyre smoke and the hearts of us all going a bit quicker than they were.
Our car rental place had indicated that there was something pretty special in Turda – about 30mins from Cluj on the way back to Brasov. It is a dis-used salt mine from the 1800s called Saline. The place looked like something from a sci-fi movie. You proceed down 104 steps until you reach a long corridor. From there, you climb down very narrow, very steep stairs to the main platform area which overlooks a massive void where salt was retrieved over decades of mining.
There’s 3 levels, the main platform; the primary level which has a ferris wheel, 2 x ten pin bowling lanes; mini golf; small auditorium; indoor soccer net and a view down to the 3rd level – a lake with row boats and seating. Each level is about 15-20 flights of stairs down – you can either line up for the single lift or take the steep and pretty daunting stairs. It’s all stunningly lit up by bright pure white lighting dropped from the platforms and ceiling.
We hired a row boat and soon discovered that I (Glen) suck hard at it, but it really didn’t matter, the scenery was why we were there. Looking at the walls & ceiling, there’s a beautiful pattern of natural salt coloring with the rhythmic circular graining caused by the machinery.
This was by far the most touristy place we’ve been, but in true Romanian style, they’ve only partly done it. With all those stairs and activities, you’re there for a minimum of 2hrs and all the walking, you develop quite the thirst and hunger for something. Surprisingly, there’s nothing. They have a bowling alley at the bottom of a salt mine, yet you can’t buy a bottle of water.
The four of us absolutely loved the place. it’s like nothing we’ve seen before and from what I know, it’s totally unique and very well done.
We headed into town, had a very nice lunch in some games-type place we stumbled across which had 2 bowling lanes & a bunch of billiard tables and then made our way home. That’s when the real adventure began – the drive home with heaps of traffic and darkness setting in.
I don’t scare easily when driving. Conditions don’t worry me, speed is fine, even dealing with tailgaters and overtaking is just part of the deal. But doing this with Romanian drivers on Romanian roads? I don’t mind admitting, I was pretty terrified at times.
People with fast cars go bloody fast – I’d be going 110km/h, and from nowhere, I’d be overtaken by a BMW or similar as if I were standing still. Exaggeration aside – if they weren’t doing 160km/h or more, I’d be super surprised. They don’t wait for an appropriate time to overtake either – blind corners, oncoming traffic approaching, multiple cars to overtake… par for the course. 1 incident in particular, 2 cars ahead of me were trying to overtake a car ahead of them that was going “slowly” and the rare overtaking lane was ending. Fearing they’d get stuck behind, one guy overtakes as the lane ends as oncoming traffic approached while the other guy undertakes the guy going 2 wheels on the dirt (no road shoulder) and 2 wheels almost touching rim-to-rim with the car he was going past. I backed way back assuming the worst, but it came together.
The drive was intense – there’s no getting around it. By the end, I was completely mentally exhausted and Deb, my trusty co-driver, who had lived every narrow miss, was ready to hit the pillow as well.
The weekend was just fantastic, just wish we had more time to spend in Cluj and Sibiu. Now where to next weekend…
