After sailing on the Danube and walking on its shore, we got back on the road, towards our next destination, which was located not far from where we were: only 20 km away.
At the end of the XIXth century, the emperor of Austria built at Băile Herculane (The Baths of Hercules) one of the most beautiful resorts in Europe at that time, with modern treatment facilities.
Today, in 2017, walking on the streets of the city, you can only imagine the beauty from the past, while looking with incredulity at what has remained from the once splendid buildings.
Băile Herculane was the most disappointing touristic experience we had since we started this site and also the most painful, because the place seems taken from a fairytale, with high and majestic mountains, with the river Cerna which flows joyfully over the stones, with buildings that once upon a time were the definition of luxury, and now everything around you shows only carelessness, stupidity, theft and sadness.
From the baths for rich people that existed a century ago, now all that remains are abandoned and derelict buildings, with rusty locks at the doors and broken windows, covered with wooden boards and cellophane, with graffiti on the walls, feces on the ground and homeless people sleeping inside.
The people who still come here are bathing in so-called mini-tubs made of concrete, located in the open air, small and unsanitary, crowding together in hope of benefiting from the “miraculous” properties of the water, or directly in the river, where there is a rusty pipe that still delivers some sulphurous water, once being the source for the thermal baths.
The „7 Izvorare” (7 Springs) swimming pool, which is promoted throughout town by banners, is a degraded and dirty place, the sunbeds are old and broken, the slides are rusty and they were probably never used, the blue paint from the walls of the pool sticks to your hands and bathing suit… It’s a good place to shoot horror movies, but it is still ok compared to other terrible places we have seen there.
Lacking alternatives, we went to the pool of a hotel, which was almost decent, and we had the opportunity to share our disappointment with other tourists while taking a bath. We had another bad surprise when the staff from the restaurant refused to serve us, because we were not accommodated there. We found out later from a local that the chefs were on a some sort of strike, because they were not paid on time.
There are some good hotels with luxury spas, but they are open only to their guests. There are, also, many pensions in the town, some bigger and nicer, some smaller and more modest. In August when we visited it was very hard to find free rooms, but once we got there it was difficult to understand why did all those people go there…
The city park from the center was renovated and looks really well, the grass is mowed, there are benches to sit on and a pavilion to rest, but the neighbouring casino is only partially renovated.
Many buildings have scaffolding on them, but it looks as if it is staying there for years, some of them have new windows… it is just hard to explain. The sensation is that the city began to be renovated at some point, you could see the light at the and of the tunnel, there was still hope for the architectural wonders there…. but then suddenly the apocalypse came, everything was abandoned, and now nature is taking over once again.
In the old center, the statue of Hercules watches helplessly the distressing scenery around it.
The only construction in good shape is a small roman-catholic church.
We have left Băile Herculane with a bitter taste… Probably in a country that respects its history, its resources, its nature and of course its citizens, those responsible for this disaster would have been punished accordingly and things would have been better by now. In our country, unfortunately, decency and responsibility are rare pearls… just like this resort-town, which could be wonderful.
Our next stops on our way home were going to be the two Sarmizegetusa archaeological sites and the Prislop monastery.
