Bucharest – Slanic Prahova – Lacerta – Mud Volcanoes
We’ll start this day from Bucharest. I’ll be at your hotel at 7:30 a.m. Around 9:30 a.m. we will arrive at the biggest salt mine in Europe. The mining plant of the salt stopped in 1970 at Unirea Mine (one of the four mines of Slanic Prahova Salt Mine). It becomes a touristic attraction and a sanatorium.
The visitors come for its supposed healing effects due to the purity of the air. The air-conditioning of the mine is natural, with a constant temperature during the whole year of 12 °C, the atmospheric pressure of 730 mmHg. That’s why during summer you need a jacket for this tour.
One of the chambers is a salt museum named Genesis Hall. It hosts the salt busts of Decebal (the Dacian king) and Traian (the Roman emperor). The ceiling of the mine is bordered by wooden balconies used for the circulation of the authorized personnel during the periodical inspection.
We’ll visit this place for about one hour. After that, we’ll continue with a beautiful landscape of Buzau hills to LacertA Winery. All of these for better understand how a small business became a success, providing quality wines.
On the same 45th parallel as famous Toscana or Bordeaux is this place where fertile and clean soils are recognized by the small lizards speeding around here.
In 2011, lizards borrowed their names to these world-class wines: LacertA. You will have the opportunity to see the way LacertA’s wines are made, to taste them and to buy the perfect wine.
After testing several different wines, we’ll see a strange phenomenon, cold mud coming from underground: Muddy Volcanoes. This is a geological and botanical reservation. The mud dries off at the surface, creating a conical structure resembling a real volcano. The gases erupt from 3.000 meters deep and push up underground salty water and mud. The phenomenon can be observed in two separate locations: The Little Mud Volcanoes and The Big Mud Volcanoes. Access is only permitted on dry days, of course.