Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Turda
POP 57,381
Since its main square was semi- pedestrianised back in 2010, Turda is more inviting. With
its lustrously coloured Hapsburg facades and two ace cards - the epic Turda Gorge and
eerily awesome Salt Mine - you may find yourself happily staying overnight here. Altern-
atively, visit from Cluj, a mere 27km away.
Turda was an important salt-mining town from the 13th century until 1932, when the
main mine shut down. A quarter of the town's residents are Hungarian. Turda's central
street, Str Republicii, is home to several banks, the post office and a taxi stand at its north
end (at PiaĊ£a Republicii, near where the roads go around the 15th-century Catholic
church).
Sights
MINE
Salt Mine
(
www.salinaturda.eu
;
Str Salinelor 54; adult/child 15/8 lei; 9am-3.30pm daily sum-
mer, 9am-1.30pm Mon-Fri, 9am-3.30pm Sat & Sun winter; )
Like a Bond villain's
hideout, these creepy caverns seem an apt place for hatching world domination; the most
popular is Rolf Mine, some 40m-deep (13 storeys high).
To get to it pass through the crashed UFO-style entrance, then, feeling like an extra in
an X-Box game, shuffle down a space-age stairway past a serenely lit shrine (where each
morning a priest said prayers for those unfortunate miners about to be lowered by rope
and basket into the chilly abyss). Your first glance from the slippery gallery into Rolf
Mine is highly vertiginous, peering down at...well, a billiards table, table tennis area, ca-
rousel and bowling alley, far, far below. Oh, and Gollumesque boats that paddle around an
island in a spectral green pond...all in all, very weird. Fortunately for you these days,
there's a lift, or you can take the stairs.
The mine is about 1km north from the centre, towards Cluj; a sign points 200m off the
road. If you're driving from Cluj, veer left at the first fork in the village (a sign points to
'centru'
). By the time you read this a zoo should be operating - at surface level - in the
same complex.
