It was our last full day in Oradea today and so, despite the 37° outside, it was decided we would have a day out in the car to a Romanian spa resort.
Băile Felix is a small thermal spa resort just outside Oradea, Romania’s largest health resort. This was a good choice, as we got to see something different to the city we’ve explored by foot – and, shamefully, not by tram or bus – and a bit of culture. And to be fair, it wasn’t really a “day out” in the car either because we didn’t leave until about six, as the sun was starting to relent.
Băile Felix is a small thermal spa resort just outside Oradea, which is apparently well-known throughout the country as Romania’s largest health resort. We’ve been calling them the Happy Baths – felix meaning happy in Latin – but they’re actually named after an eighteenth-century Moravian monk.
The tiny wooden Biserica Ortodoxă Română is a little oasis of calm, hidden away from the tourist-tat shops and sun-loungers, and seems to be so well-frequented that a five-litre plastic bottle of water, hopefully holy, is kept next to the stoup at the entrance. The church is active, and offers refuge from the hawkers and gawkers who mill around, proudly displaying their beer-guts for the world to see.
Apart from the qualities variously attributed to the year-round thermal waters – how to correctly park an SUV almost as orange as the besunglassed emaciate driving it not being on the list – the waters are home to Nymphaea lotus f. thermalis Egyptian white water lilies, which are usually only found in the Nile delta (I am told). The pools also host terrapins of varying sizes, apparently deposited in the water by people who once thought they’d be a great pet, but who quickly realised that having a pet requires some kind of effort.
In the late evening, we took a drive up into the mountains and cooked aubergines and peppers over a fire barbecue whilst being attacked by a succession of flying bitey little bastards. I took a walk up as far as I could get through the “nature”, to get a view back into the city, and then we returned home for baba ganoush, peppers and that all-important pre-sleep pálenka.
Sadly, the heat, combined with many close encounters of the turd kind, confounded us so there remain plenty of things we didn’t get to do in Oradea: we didn’t get to have a closer look at the moon church, have a proper look at the Basilica without annoying the faithful, or get to see the interior of the fortress. In some ways, the sun did us a favour by forcing us out to explore in the evening – it seems Oradea becomes even more beautiful in late-evening light – but there will be further opportunities for exploration in years to come, I’m sure.
