First of all she was impressed by the size of this aquarium. There are 11,000 animals and approximately 450 different species in the Mediterranean and tropical tanks. There are also two permanent displays Planeta Aqua and Explora!

You can choose to walk near the aquariums or take a walk with a moving walkway. If you walk at your own pace you can take as many pictures as you want, stay as much as you want at a tank and watch a fish species. However, sooner or later your legs will hurt. If you use the walkway it is much easier – you stay and admire the view – but the pace is determined by this means of transportation. And here’s a tip for you: if you planned to visit more touristic objectives, not only the Aquarium in a day, you should take the walkway. Oh, and allow yourself several hours for a complete visit and to be able to admire all the species.

A special attraction here are the sharks. Oh, and one more and tip: you can even swim with the sharks. On the official website you have the info on this! Seeing the sharks is quite an experience: you go through an 80 metres long glass tunnel and you are literally surrounded by sharks.

My friend was impressed by the octopus: they were in the mood for playing .

But you can say only so much. This is a place you have to experience yourself! My friend looks forward to getting back there and recommended L’Aquàrium as a must visit in Barcelona, Spain.

From the official site we find out some pricing and visiting hours info:
Visiting hours:
Open all year round
Opening: 9.30h

Closing
Of Monday through Friday: 21.00h
Weekend and public holidays: 21.30h
June and September: 21.30h
July and August: 23.00h
(Ticket offices and accesses open until one hour before).

Prices
Adults: 17.50 €
Children from 4 to 12: 12.50 €
Adults over 60: 14.50 €

There is also a pass available option – you can find out more on site or at location.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll let you enjoy some of the photos she made in this aquarium.

We’ve spent one of the first days of our vacation in the Apuseni Mountains (Western Carpathians) from this year visiting two caves: the one at Scarisoara and the Bears’ Cave. Today few words on Scarisoara.

First of all I must tell you that this was the first cave I was about to visit. Also my husband didn’t visit this cave either. So… on the road.

As I mentioned we stayed in Albac, a village pretty close to the one where the Scarisoara cave is. So after 20 minutes or so we arrived in the Garba Mare village where we headed for the cave. The road is not so great – actually it’s horrible for a car, it is more of a forest road. It is accessible if you have a Dacia logan, a 4X4 car or a Dacia pick-up – awesome for off-road adventurers. And if you don’t want to drive there are several people with cars offering this service and doing this transport daily – for a fee, of course. There is also the possibility of taking a long walk – the trekkers will love this one.

After half an hour or so we were at the top, the end of the road accessible by car. Only 5 minutes walk away from the cave. We bought the tickets (very cheap – 7 lei for an adult – almost 2 euros) and opened the gate.

First reaction I had was: Oh my God! Is this for real?
Reason? Opening the gate you see a long line of metallic stairs, one man wide (OK, afterwards we saw that if necessary two people can pass by each other) going down. 60 m below the entrance, to be more exact. Quite a trip, huh?

Now there’s a useful tip: when going to Scarisoara, regardless of the time of the year, be sure to have some warm clothes (at least a winter jacket and long pants), preferably trekking boots and it would not hurt to have gloves at your disposal. We didn’t have gloves, so our hands froze on the metal hand railing, at some point, but in the end it was all OK – there was no one rushing us, so we took our time climbing down. I had to make a note here: when we entered the cave, through all our visit, we were alone – only almost close to the exit a group showed up. So to speak we had the cave and glacier only for us to walk, see, admire, picture . It was fun like that, no one rushing us (we didn’t take a guided tour, also available and very affordable from the price perspective).

The important thing (for those not used to effort and stairs) is not to give up even though the temptation is big. It’s more of a first impression (when you’ll climb up to the exit you’ll see it’s not such a long or hard trip, only your first impression!). For those used to climbing the mountains, long walks etc. this is a piece of cake.

And here we were. At the top of the oldest glacier of the world, Scarisoara, located of course in the Scarisoara cave.

Nothing else but ice. Cave elements made of ice. Incredible!

In the left side you’ll see a formation that looks like a ghost (like a sheet-covered guy, as if it was  Halloween). There is a path you have to follow – sort of a wooden bridge built atop the glacier. No walking to the ice. You can take your time and see all the parts of the cave.

Even if you don’t buy a guided tour, you receive a flier with details and explanations for all parts of the cave. The information is available in four languages (English, French, Hungarian and Romanian), so it will be easy to make connections between the described elements and parts of the cave and what you see. If you choose a guided 30 min. tour you will of course have the chance to get a specialist to guide you and deliver explanations for everything you see and of course someone you can ask for more information.

In order to provide some technical details on the cave and the glacier, I’m quoting from the official flier: “

The cave is situated in the Apuseni Nature Park, at an elevation of 1165 m, on the edge of Scarisoara karst plateau. The total length of the cave is 700 m, while its depth reaches 105 m below surface. The access into cave is situated at the bottom of a 48 m deep, 60 m large shaft, where an imposing portal (17 m large and 24 m high) is opened. This portal gives access to the Great Hall, which continues with the “Church” the main tourist attraction of the cave. Two openings, on the left and respectively right sides of the great Hall, give access to the lower parts of the cave, named the Great and Little Reservation, mostly free of ice and richly decorated with calcite speleothemes. The ice block has a volume of about 100.000 m3, a maximum thickness of 22,5 m, and an estimated radiocarbon age of 3800 years, being worlds second largest ice block and the oldest one.

All in all Scarisoara is a must see, a special place, worlds oldest glacier and the second one in volume and, well,  the cave is also amazing. Visiting the Scarisoara cave and glacier is an unique experience that you won’t forget or regret. I can’t forget it – actually I want to go back some time to see it again…

Enjoy!

Between 2008-2010 the salt mine in Turda was renovated and now this saline looks great, it comes up to international standards, offering you hours of health and lovely spent spare time.

We’ve visited this saline this year, in 2010, during our vacation in the Western Carpathians. We had our dog with us so we couldn’t spend much time inside (only about one hour and a half) for it was hot outside, and the dog had to stay in the car, with water and open windows but still in the car.

On your way in you’ll find recommendations to wear suitable clothing for 10-12 C degrees centigrade. So that’s tip number one.

You’ll pass through a “buffer room” where the temperature is an intermediate between the one outside (where it can get really hot, especially during the summer) and the one down in the saline, in order for your body to adapt to the temperature difference.

Finally you get to a door at the top of a long stairs going down. There you’ll find yourself in a long corridor with different exits to one side. The side depends on the entrance that you used. For us, the exits  were to the left; first comes the treatment facility (since the saline is a great  natural solution for quite a bunch of health problems), the saline itself and, near the end, Echo room.

At this point you should know that it is strictly forbidden to write on the walls or any other part of the saline and to bring any kind of food or drinks inside (no, not even water). This is the second tip.

When you get in you will see that you are at the top of the salt mine. There are two ways to get down: by stairs or by elevator. Of course most people prefer to take the elevator, but be careful since you may find a long waiting line…

Now here you are: in the middle of the saline. Salt everywhere. Beneath your feet, on the walls, the ceiling – everything is salt, and you can literally say that “you can feel it in the air”!

As entertainment options there’s enough to choose from! You can play mini-golf and / or mini-bowling. There’s also a basketball/volleyball court, although not operational when we went there. There’s also a large wheel where you can enjoy a ride to see the main cave from different angles. We did that. You have lots of places to sit down – and other activities to enjoy. The cost for these entertainments? Quite small, I’d say – between 5 and 10 lei (from 1,2  to 2,5 EUR) depending on the entertainment and age. However, the numbers can add up if you spend a lot of time inside doing stuff. Tip number three - you can bring your own badminton set, for example, or a volleyball and you can play with your friends or kids – there’s a large area where you could do that.

You can get deeper in the salt mine and enjoy a boat ride on the small lake you can find at the very bottom of the saline. The cost is also affordable (but we didn’t go there because of Maxie who was patiently waiting in the car).

As I mentioned before there’s an quite impressive Echo room – an interesting one actually and of course you can hear many interesting (or not… ) sounds made by the tourists visiting this room!

All in all I recommend you all – Romanians or not – to take a trip to this saline. You may find that you’ll want to get back soon! Tip number four – allow yourself several hours for enjoying the cool, salty air, the atmosphere and for being able to say you’ve visited the whole saline.

The saline entrance fee is 15 lei (almost 3.5 EUR) for adults and cheaper for kids (8 lei – just about 2 EUR); for going to the treatment base there is a different pricing and there is the alternative of purchasing a pass card for several days.

Visiting hours:
- between May 1st and October 31st: 9-15 (last entrance in the salina)
- between November 1st and April 30th: 9-13.30 (last entrance in the salina).
The Turda saline is open from Monday to Sunday!

Point of Interest on Google Maps.

So, before I write a top 10 nicest places I’ve been, let’s try with something more spooky – top 10 adventures.

1. North Korea – it is a country like no other on Earth… It lives completely disconnected     from the world in their own parallel universe. It reminds me of Romania of 80s, but to exaggerated to maximum.
2. North India – you will hate it or love it, you will be overwhelmed or just fall in love…     the feelings are intense and you cannot pass by without engaging all our emotions.
3. Teheran bus station – a guy sees us completely lost out of the metro station looking for the bus station. He leads us to the place (we took the wrong exit), asks where we go, we answer Kashan, brings us to the ticket office, buys the tickets for 4 and runs… “I was out of my country and I was helped by people from there. I need to return this”.
4. Wagah, Indian – Pakistan border: it is in the middle of nowhere, but here each evening the tallest guys in this billion+ countries lower the flag in a ceremony which is attended by thousands… Both India and Pakistan built viewing tribunes on the road, looking like a stadium.
5. Lost in translation in Japan – If North Korea is in another galaxy, probably Japan is on  another planet… you don’t need to visit temple X or Y, the     biggest show is to watch the people going to work and having fun in Pachinko… and especially asking for directios… They will escort where you want to go, speaking continuously in Japanese ! Be polite and approve whatever they are saying.
6. Jema el-Fnaa Square in  Marrakech, Morocco – it is an carnival each evening, but a carnival throwing you few centuries ago…
7. Everest Base Camp, Tibet – you look at Everest and realize how small and insignificant you are.
8. Macchu Picchu, Peru – if you get in the middle of the rain, it stops and then the clouds start to lift, you believe for sure there is something supernatural with the site.
9. Uros Island, lake Titicaca, Peru – it is an island, but it is soft, you jump on it and feel it is something weird… It is an artificial island made by human hand from reed.
10. Cernobyl nuclear power station, Ukraine – no, never again… although some people want to   replicate it in Rosia Montana.

Cezar a.k.a Imperator is a travel enthusiast who has travelled in 75 countries around the globe. He has a travel blog with memories, advices and travel suggestions at http://www.imperatortravel.blogspot.com/

Copyright and photo credits Cezar

Aiud is a city located in Transylvania which has an interesting story related to medieval and contemporary times. Here you can find many historical buildings, museums and churches.

It is a small city, having a not very attractive train station or shopping stores, but some beautiful cultural buildings. You can visit the City Citadel which is located in the center of Aiud; it was built in the 14th century. It has irregular pentagon shaped fortification walls of raw quarry stone and his defensive capacity was improved by eight guilds’ towers and one gate. The towers were named after the type of handcraftsmen guilds’: The Butchers Tower, The Tailors Tower tailors and so on (shoemakers, potters, locksmiths). The fortress was initially surrounded by a moat filled with water brought from Aiud Valley, which you could pass walking over the folding bridge. This bridge was raised every day, at 9 pm. or whenever needed. The moat was covered in the 18th century. It is said that here was a network of pedestrian passages built underground, which probably provided a secret supply to various strategic points. The existence of this network was proven several times during several excavations in the foundation.

The Roman Catholic Church, which is smaller and less imposing that the Orthodox Cathedral, is still very beautiful and was built in a gothic style. It is still hosting a large and venerable organ, while being surrounded by the medieval Aiud Citadel that I mentioned before.

Even if I want to stress out the beautiful medieval elements of the city, I can’t overlook its contemporary history. In Aiud you can find a well-known “communist prison”. That is the term used by the media, although “it was not built by the communists, but about 150 years before” as Oliviu Socaciu sustains. It is true that in this prison many legionnaires (The Legion of Archangel Michael, a fascist organization mostly active during the 1930s) have executed their sentences, but I don’t know how come Aiud is associated with the prison despite its beauty standing in the cultural or medieval buildings that display majestic style, decorations and stunning interiors.

I really hope you’ll be able to find some time to visit this wonderful city. It would be a shame for a place with such intrinsic value, gained from centuries of existence, to be forgotten.

Valentina Roman – Being an optimistic and organized character, I’ve always tried to bring a something fresh in whatever I’m doing and to stand up to the trust put in me. This is why the projects I’m involved in have taken part of my desire to reach perfection by innovation and responsibility for the partner. I like – and I like to have next to me – open, happy, creative people, able to transmit their ideas in an elegant and decent manner. A tent of common sense and pragmatism in an age where details seem to matter no more. You can read my journal at http://valentina-roman.blogspot.com.

Now, I was not pregnant but I know pregnant women need to go often in a certain place.

I also heard (for I’ve never been to London) that it’s not a problem to find a toilette.

Most certainly this is an old law – but it looks like it’s still active.

What do you think about that?

And if this is not a strange enough law, take a look here to see some more from all over the world.

Do you know strange laws/rules in your country?

On the road to this museum we passed by – and we stopped to see – a nature curiosity: an entire mountain wall full of fossilized snails. It is locally known as the Snails Hill (by the people in that area). And since an image is worth a thousand words, here are some photos of this interesting formation. Enjoy!