Targu Ocna Salt Mine

About

While salt has been extracted here since medieval times - in the 15th century, the town seal showed a miner holding a stone-cutting hammer - Târgu Ocna’s official salt mine wasn’t recorded until the rule of Stephen the Great a few decades later. Between 1974 and 2005 the mine was used as a Sanitarium, where visitors could come to help all sorts of respiratory ailments, and in 1992, Europe’s first underground Orthodox church was created, with the icons, altar and chandelier all made made from salt by miner-craftsmen. Today, visitors can enjoy an even more a modern leisure centre. Within the mine’s 13,000 square meters, are facilities for basketball, pool, and go-karts, as well as spaces to relax. There is also the ”Museum of salt”, where visitors can learn about the history of salt-mining, and its therapeutic virtues.