A salt on the senses
The underground salt mines in Turda city, Transylvania, are no longer used to extract everyone’s favourite chip seasoning – instead, the enormous caverns have been transformed into an impressive tourist attraction.
It’s possible that salt was mined from Salina Turda as far back as the Roman era, but the earliest definitive records date back to the 13th Century. While salt extraction stopped in the 1930s, the mines were not forgotten. In WWII they were used as an air raid shelter, and then later as a storage unit (for cheese, apparently). Now, though, Salina Turda includes a Ferris wheel, a mini-golf course and billiards tables.
Some people believe that spending time in salt mines is beneficial for our health – a form of alternative medicine dubbed ‘halotherapy’. While there is no scientific basis to these claims, it cannot be denied that the mines are an impressive environment to explore.