Turda Salt Baths (Băile Sărate)

Băile Sărate (Turda-Băi) is a leisure and spa area within the city of Turda, Cluj County, north-east of the town centre and about 2 km from Salina Turda. It lies in a small basin surrounded by woods, at an average altitude of 360 m. Sixteen salt lakes have been identified here, all formed in old Roman or medieval salt workings, pits and mines that filled with water over time. The Romans extracted salt at the surface, from pits 12-15 m deep. The area has been used as a small spa since the first half of the 19th century, on the initiative of the physician József Hankó and the pharmacist Lajos Velits. The Roman Lake was turned into a bathing area in the 1920s, with further works in the interwar years, in the 1950s and after the complex was privatised. The main place to visit is the outdoor bathing area on the Roman Lake (about 0.37 ha), with paid entry. Other salt lakes can be seen nearby, including Lake Tarzan (also called the "Bottomless Lake"), Lake Csiky and the Nightingale Lake. Visitors use the salty mud for baths. It is reached from central Turda via Aleea Ștrandului. The area belongs to the Sărăturile Ocna Veche Natura 2000 site (ROSCI0223, 140.3 ha, designated in 2007 and a special area of conservation since 2022) and to the Sărăturile și Ocna Veche nature reserve (Law 5/2000), which protects salt-marsh vegetation, with Salicornia species, and rare plants such as the fen orchid (Liparis loeselii). Did you know that a research borehole drilled here between 1967 and 1970 hit salt only 3.8 m below the surface and stayed in salt down to a depth of 2,870 m? The salt body under Băile Sărate is therefore more than 2,850 m thick.