After Florence, I returned to Romania.
Florence, where beauty appears to have unionized and agreed to show up for work daily, if a bit late and an understanding about mandatory vacation time. Florence, where dinner stretches for hours, streets invite wandering, and even inconvenience feels somehow aesthetically coordinated.
And then there is Turda.
To be clear, Turda itself is not the problem. The problem is expectation. Or logistics. Or perhaps the increasingly complicated relationship between travel reality and travel marketing.
I came to Turda for two reasons: the salt mine and a spa weekend.
The plan was simple, and perfect for a weekend getaway. I would visit the salt mine Saturday and recover Sunday with a spa day before taking the bus back to Timisoara on Monday. A weekend of heated pools, perhaps a massage or two, and the kind of restorative quiet that makes you briefly believe you have become the sort of person who prioritizes wellness and meditates regularly.
This was, I realize now, the Luca version of the trip.
Luca is not a real person, exactly. Luca is the imaginary Instagram travel bro who visits everywhere when there are no crowds, when every street is golden hour, and when even demanding experiences leave him looking professionally tousled instead of medically concerning. Luca travels the world with one backpack, which apparently contains an entire remote-work studio, a videography setup, toiletries, emergency snacks, extra shoes, weather-appropriate layers, wrinkle-free linen, and approximately 9,000 outfit choices.
Luca never appears to need a laundromat, a pharmacy, a backup charging cable, or a plastic grocery bag full of shame snacks. Luca never sweats in a way that becomes a laundry concern, loses his headphones, or has any issue figuring out wifi and cell phone plans across half a dozen countries. Luca moves through the world as if logistics are something that happen to other people.
I, unfortunately, am other people.
Arranging transportation offered the first clue. Getting to Turda without driving is not exactly simple, but I did find a 4.5-hour bus from Timișoara, by far the most efficient option I could find. The bus even left at 1738, well after my last class of the day and with plenty of time for me to pack and get dinner.
And it was all working out. Until around 1700 when I ordered my uber and the expected arrival time was not until 1725. A significantly tighter time frame than I usually like for travel, especially with non-refundable tickets and reservations, but there was nothing I could do but wait. The bus stop was not a far drive, only 8 minutes or so, I would still arrive with a few minutes to spare.
The drive took forever, and the driver took a wrong turn trying to get to the bus station. The corrected route would have added ten minutes to the total time – ten minutes I did not have. So, I convinced him, with my broken Romanian to just stop and let me out and I would walk the last block without problem. He let me out, I immediately dashed across a multiple-land highway like a frog set free from an arcade cabinet, and came in through the “Do Not Enter” back entrance to the bus station. I was not the last person on board the bus, but that is due only to the dedication a small group of men had to finishing their cigarettes before the ride.
The bus left 2 minutes late, but I was on it.
The ride to Turda was beautiful. The central Romanian countryside is like a story book. Small towns, fields of flowers and cows, and mountain vistas. I had plenty of time to appreciate it all since we stopped 3 times on the 4 hour trip for bathroom breaks, food quests and of course, smoke breaks.
I appreciate the dedication to stopping and stretching our legs, but I was raised in a generation of “better make sure you go before we head out because we are only stopping for gas”, where our travel stops were conducted with the efficiency of a NASCAR track team in training. Ordering a fresh made sandwich with a side of freshly squeezed juice? Absolutely not, we may as well be seated at a restaurant. You had best use the bathroom, grab a slim jim and a sprite, and be back in the car before the tank is full or you may be left behind.
Europeans would not survive the American Summer Road trip culture without either several days of preparation or very good therapy afterwards.
And while the ride was more of a 3.5 hour road trip with aspirations, we arrived in Turda after only 5 hours of travel time. This meant it was past 2300 when I got off the bus for the last time.
Now, Turda is very small. Small enough that rideshares simply do not seem to exist, at least after dark. There was no Uber and no Bolt. No taxi materialized from the digital void, and the streets were absolutely empty.
After waiting and refreshing apps for far too long, I had to face reality. I began walking to the hotel.
Google Maps, apparently powered by confidence rather than accuracy, led me through dark streets and alleyways for nearly an hour at close to midnight. I called my husband to be on the phone with me while I walked, because although Romania has proven over and over again to be extremely safe, my American brain could all too easily imagine the Lifetime Movie they would make from this scene in my life.
While walking down a long alleyway lit by little more than the moon, I saw a young man in front of me. I watched as he raised both arms, palms out to me, then crossed the street to the other sidewalk to continue walking past me. He never stopped or said anything, but the wordless gesture made me feel at ease in a strange place.
A few wrong turns and a navigator watching my progress via satellite map to reassure me that the dark alley I was staring at would indeed lead me somewhere besides an after school special about stranger danger, I made it to the hotel.
Pouring sweat and clearly exhausted after a midnight 5k, I checked in. The receptionist asked where I had walked from, and she confirmed that I had effectively walked across the entirety of town.
Still, the room was lovely. Large, quiet, clean. A genuinely hot shower, air conditioning and a comfortable bed. These details mean a lot to someone who lives in a dorm room next to what is apparently the main outdoor dance and hang out zone nightly from about 2200 to 0400 daily.
I am very supportive of all the young people living their best college life, but I won’t pretend the urge to introduce them to the American cultural tradition of yelling out a window in fluent New Yorker doesn’t cross my mind occasionally.
The next morning began with a beautiful view and an excellent breakfast buffet that stayed open until 11 a.m., a kindness I deeply respected after the previous days Cannonball Run.
I enjoyed breakfast, but I was really looking forward to the highlight of the trip, the thing I have looked forward to over the past year: The Turda salt mine.
I had booked this hotel partly because it was advertised as within walking distance of the mine. This is why I was not worried when, after an hour of not being able to arrange for an uber, taxi or bolt ride, I decided to walk.
Walkable, I learned, is one of those words that deserves legal regulation.
The route began as roads that became side streets, that turned into an unpaved road, that too quickly became dirt road, before turning into just two dirt tire tracks through the grass and flowers, becoming something that felt increasingly like a hiking trail up the side of a mountain.
At some point, I crossed a creek. Shortly after this, I realized I had not brought water on this “quick and easy walk”. I had worn white pants and a light colored t-shirt on this unplanned mountain hike, and it wasn’t long before I was deciding just how many clothes I could remove before it would be an issue in an attempt to deal with my body’s response to the rapidly warming day.
There are moments during travel where you ask yourself whether you should turn back or keep moving forward. For me, that moment came after twenty minutes of uphill commitment, with no transportation alternatives and months of anticipation invested in this experience. This made turning around somehow feel less reasonable than continuing. So, on I continued.
I sustained myself primarily through a series of lies.
“That has to be the top.”
“I’ll rest there.”
“Surely this reconnects to civilization.”
Eventually, the lies became true…ish.
Somewhere, there is a social media post made by some impossible human named Luca who would have skipped along this path with a 30-kilo backpack while singing a song about the beauty of the view, self-accompanied with a ukelele. I assume that they would have arrived at the mountain peak in unwrinkled linen, with only the slightest glint of sheen highlighting their perfect features.
I arrived in whatever stage comes after regret.
When I finally reached what I thought was the top, I still had farther to go. I had summitted the mountain! But I was still 1.5km from my final destination. I could look across the landscape and see where I needed to be, but the path between me and the salt mine involved a winding mountain road, no sidewalks, deep ditches, and drivers who did not appear to be expecting a half-dead middle-aged woman to be shambling along the shoulder.
But eventually, I made it to the salt mine.
The first thing I did was buy two overpriced bottles of water and drink them. Then I bought two more.
I sat long enough to stop looking like a person actively becoming a cautionary tale and collecting concerned stares from people who looked ready to dial the emergency number the moment my breathing became just the slightest bit more irregular, and then I went inside.
The salt mine itself was impressive in scale, if somewhat uneven in experience. The first part involved a lot of disorganized walking down hallways, very few useful signs, and 109 steps.
I counted.
Everything was salty and damp, which I realize is a reasonable condition for a salt mine with a large lake at the center, but still something the body notices. I wandered down long corridors, practiced my Romanian on the signs, nearly slipped on stairs that were doing their best to become a mineral-based lawsuit, and eventually found my way down.
Here is a short list of things I found there:
- The indoor Ferris wheel: out of commission.
- Souvenirs and food: apparently managed by one ancient woman operating at the pace of geology.
- Mini golf, pool tables, and other activities: mostly overrun by children and teenagers.
- Performance areas: closed.
- Rowboats: technically available.
- Sitting areas: abundant, but salty and damp
I briefly considered renting a rowboat to have the full experience before remembering three important facts:
- I do not know how to row a boat.
- I had accidentally hiked a mountain.
- The last thing I needed was to become disappointed AND stranded in an underground lake.
So, I drank water and recovered. I also discovered an important fourth fact: sitting on salty damp wooden benches while wearing white is not the best life choice.
I wandered the mine, took my photos, and found a leather massage chair where, for only 15 lei, I could spend 5 full minutes being squeezed and vibrated while reflecting on travel expectations and reality.
But the real disappointment came later.
You know that feeling when a difficult day is redeemed by the promise of something restorative waiting at the end?
The hotel spa had quietly become that promise.
Massage. Heated pool. Sauna. Hammam.
Every step up the mountain. Every “almost there” lie. Each slippery salty step first down then up to the surface again. All with the silent promise: Massage. Heated pool. Sauna. Hammam.
I returned to the hotel. The trip down was easier largely thanks to a combination of gravity and the fact that the route I chose was in the shade.
Except when I returned from my Odyssey, wet and salty but triumphant, I received not my promised prize, but a polite customer service smile.
There are no spa services on weekends. Despite the website, booking listing, and even the hotel brochure handed to me not even a day earlier confidently suggesting otherwise.
This was fine. A pool, hot tub, hammam and sauna are more than enough for me. I changed from my salty drenched clothing and into my swim suit, eager to carve some relaxation out of my day.
The pool was cold.
The hot tub was technically a hot tub only in the philosophical sense.
The sauna was off.
The hammam was broken.
The downstairs pool area had the energy of a liminal space pretending to be a wellness spa. It was not creepy exactly. That would give it too much intention. It was clean enough. It existed. There was water. There were lounge chairs. But everything felt slightly paused, as if someone had built a wellness center in 2014, emotionally abandoned it in 2019, and left it technically functioning outside of space and time in 2026.
The lights would not stay on, so it existed in the strange dimly-lit reality of basement apartments and back rooms.
The water was too cold. The hot tub sat in silence, not merely unheated but spiritually unavailable. The sign assured me that the “mineral color” was a natural occurrence from the salt in the water, but the greenish water was absolutely still, without even the slightest movement. I won’t say that the hot tub loomed, but it definitely gave mildly threatening vibes of “Come on in. There will be absolutely no lasting medical or health effects if you submerge in my murky waters!”
This is where I thought of Luca again.
Somewhere, in the imaginary Instagram version of this trip, Luca was gliding through a wellness spa with soft music, flattering light, and a heated pool. He had probably just finished answering emails from a laptop that somehow fit in his backpack beside his drone, linen trousers, noise-canceling headphones, electrolyte packets, editing suite, emergency snacks, and seventeen shirts suitable for golden hour.
Mine photo looks like this:
Dinner, too, staged a small rebellion. Restaurants had largely closed by early evening, and I eventually paid too much money for fast food delivery from the next town over that was perfectly fine and deeply disappointing in exactly the way travel food sometimes becomes. Greasy enough to upset my stomach, expensive enough to feel mildly insulting.
This weekend has not been perfect.
But somewhere between Florence and Turda, I remembered that travel is not a magazine spread. Travel blogs and Instagram have a way of flattening experience into aesthetics. Beautiful view! Hidden gem! Wellness retreat! Easy walk! Everything edited into the appearance of effortless delight.
What gets left out are the hills. The traffic. The lines. The bugs. The closed restaurants. The bathrooms without toilet paper. The moments where Google Maps enrolls you in an unexpected hiking experience without asking for consent.
You know. Reality.
And reality, inconveniently, is part of the place too.
Luca’s version of travel may not be false. That is probably the irritating part. Some version of it exists. There are angles where the light is better. There are moments when the crowd clears. There are photos where the water looks inviting, the path looks easy, and the whole trip appears to have unfolded with grace.
But Luca’s version is edited before the bruises, wrong turns, broken amenities, and cold hot tubs have a chance to appear.
My Turda had no taxis. It had false summits. It had salty stairs, a silent Ferris wheel, and a hot tub that had clearly chosen nonparticipation.
It also had beautiful flowers in a dozen shades of pink and purple. Hillsides where the wind made the long grass roll like waves on the sea. A perfectly hidden creek with berry bushes hanging heavy over the water that I would never have seen if anything had gone according to plan. More butterflies than I could count, none of which were shy about landing on me to taste the salt on my skin. It had the particular satisfaction of realizing that, even when things are going badly, I can still solve the next problem in front of me, and then the next one after that.
I can walk across town when there are no rides.
I can climb the hill.
I can buy the water.
I can decide not to row the boat.
I can be disappointed and still keep moving.
I do not wish Luca harm. I wish him beautiful light, excellent espresso, and continued success. I also wish him one cold hot tub when he has been looking forward to it for weeks, or maybe one walk that begins as a sidewalk and slowly becomes a dirt track up the side of a mountain.
Nothing dangerous or terrible. Just enough inconvenience to make him caption with humility.
The truth is, this will probably be funny later.
The strange little spa outside of time. The accidental mountain hike. The ancient souvenir woman moving at the pace of geology to collect items from glass cases in perhaps the most mathematically inefficient pattern possible. The realization that perhaps I do, in fact, know myself pretty well.
I like nature.
I just like it best through a large picture window.
I like mountains attached to cabins I drove to myself. I admire forests more deeply when accompanied by climate control, cell service, and hot water nearby. I enjoy nature most when it asks very little of me personally.
Still.
The room was quiet. The shower was hot. The bed was comfortable. Breakfast was genuinely good. Everything here was exceptionally clean. The staff were kind.
Not every trip becomes the version you imagined. Sometimes the trip gives you the cold pool instead of the spa day. The long walk instead of the easy ride. The dirt trail instead of the sidewalk. The creek instead of the itinerary.
I would not have chosen that walk. I would not have packed for it, dressed for it, or gone looking for it.
But I did see the creek.
I did see the butterflies.
I did make it to the salt mine.
I did make it back.
And somewhere between the broken hammam and the thousandth butterfly, Turda became a story worth having after all.
Field Notes From Abroad 
Bună ziua! What do you think?