The word is a very exciting place

Salina Turda, despite the awful sounding name is actually one of the most magical yet strangest places I have ever visited. Its an easy day trip from Cluj-Napoca, and it will literally take your breath away, literally and figuratively.  It's a deep salt mine, over a hundred years old, and still features some of the old wooden mining kit. Some areas are polished, and it almost looks like glass, other places the salt deposits look like freshly lain snow. And then, things get even more random. Inside the main cavern is a mini Blackpool pleasure beach, with a Ferris wheel, rowing boats and even mini golf, the place is teeming with people, but you don't really notice them, you just sort of see through them at the walls of the salt cavern. In fact, its hard to describe exactly, the feeling is incredible. As you descend down the stairs, a feeling of...I'm not entirely sure what the feeling was, but it was incredible. One of the places to visit before you die. I repeat, if you ever...

Hello and welcome to part 2 of Cluj Napoca. This post is all about the Transylvania Ethnographic museum. As you are all probably aware by now, I love a good outdoor ethnographic museum. I'm not entirely sure why, but I try to visit every single one that I can. Part of me loves to see how people lived years ago, and another part of me wonders if in a hundred years time, we will be adding houses and our current lifestyle into these museums, and we will be looking back and wondering on earth how we coped being so primitive with our reliance on electricity and WI-FI. But I guess that's got a little way to go just yet! The museum is on the outskirts of Cluj, away from the city centre. It was a beautiful day, so I walked from the Train station (Gara) to it, grabbing something to eat from a bakery on the way. I'm not sure why, but eastern Europe, and to some degree parts of western Europe, have a bakery on every street. An its brilliant. You can try all these different types of br...

Cluj-Napoca (often just called Cluj) is a wonderful place, nestled in the Transylvanian countryside, full of wonders. The city centre has a beautiful cathedral, St Michaels. Its an interesting mix of Gothic architectures, and the centre around it has many little nooks and cranny's to explore. The city centre as a whole has many interesting monuments as well to see.  Also worth a visit, is the Assumption Cathedral. Its more of an orthodox style cathedral, not too dissimilar from the ones I saw in Ukraine. Just behind it, is a small park with a water fountain. There's a little touristy market there, and also the theatre and Opera house. And just behind that is a concrete construction that is beginning to take shape as another cathedral. Just how many do people need? In the city centre, there is also the tailors tower, which had an exhibition of artwork from the local children. And its worth wandering around too, I found a little sort of ethnographic/histor...

Next in my Romanian travels was Suceava. A smallish town tucked away on the road to Transylvania. It's a pretty little place, and a good way to break up the long journey by bus between Iasi and Cluj-Napoca. The main highlight is the fortress and Bukovina museum. The fortress has been partially restored, but it's quite enjoyable as you have free reign to go pretty much anywhere you like. Also, just a few minutes walk from there, is the folk village, a sort of ethnographic museum with buildings from Romania's history, all lovingly restored and looked after. Well worth a visit! The other interesting site is a little way out of Suceava. There's a monastery complex not far by minibus called Dragomirna Monastery. While a lot of it was under restoration when I visited, I was blown away by it. It has a sort of castle/fortress feel to it. Inside the main chapel, there are some wonderful paintings Theres also a quaint little gift shop...

Iasi was an amazing first stop in Romania. The city is vibrant, full of culture and history, and was charming. It had a real cosmopolitan, cafe's on the pavement kind of feel to it, and I thoroughly enjoyed being there. It's very easy to get about in Iasi, there's a comprehensive tram network that will take you pretty much anywhere you might need to go. Just go to the little booths or newsagent huts for tickets. A great place for a spot of shopping is the Palas Mall. Its huge, and seems to go on forever! Its a great place for grabbing something quick to eat, and there's also a large supermarket in the basement. Neighbouring the mall, is the National Palace of Culture. Wow. For a start, it looks like a counts palace, huge and intimidating, yet inspiring and beautiful. You could literally spend days wandering through the complex.. There's four museums inside, plus extra little exhibitions dotted about the place. Take a bit of time to read the information boar...