What do you do with an enormous underground salt mine when the mining stops? In Romania’s Transylvania region, the Salina Turda provides a novel answer.
When three centuries of salt excavation ended in 1932, its giant caverns became, first, a WWII bomb shelter, then a cheese storehouse, before their present role as one of the most incredible locations on earth for an amusement park.
Or rather under the earth, since to get to these amusements, you need to descend more than 100m into the ground via an elevator built into vertical shafts that used to transport miners. As you go down, soak up the unique ambience of the cavern, whose marble-textured walls still glisten with salt, shimmering in the spectacular futuristic cavern lights.
Once in the caverns, underground entertainments include an eerie pitch black subterranean lake with rowing boats, a Ferris wheel, a bowling alley, a mini-golf course, and tables for games like ping-pong and pool. Many of the attractions exude an almost science fiction styling, adding to the sense of strange wonder.
And while these have only been down in the mine for a decade or so, the salt deposits from which the cavern is carved are estimated to date back more than 13 million years.