Fun things to do in Judetul Bihor

Just down from the Princepesa, across from the playground. Run by a mission group (no smoking here), this new little café serves coffee, iced drinks, and pastries. Quite nice, very friendly. Many of the staff speak excellent English.

Thursday is officially Market Day in Beius, but the stands, tables, and racks are increasingly open more weekdays. A little farther down the Crisul Negru River are the real bargains – if you are interested in second hand footware or random car parts. The herbal medicines are often not identified by plant, but by function: “For the stomach,” or “For the blood.” All manner of market goods are under the awning: vegetables, eggs, live poultry, inexpensive clothing, soft drinks, CD’s. You want the bread.

Romanians are getting to like this free speech thing.

Surrounding Beius are several villages with 18th C wooden churches, including one in Tarcaita and one just southeast of the city. These are similar to the ones people make so much fuss about in Maramures; they are generally fashioned without nails and are dark both inside and out.

Baile Felix has another attraction besides the Spa's. It is the only place in Europe where you can find lotusses in the outside air.. They have a whole pond of them. Unfortunately at the end of september there were just a few left. Besides we were rather unsure whether these were the famous lotusses.. knowing both very little about plants and there was another pond with mysterious plants next to it.....

Dana (11dana) was kind enough to point out that this wasn't a photograph of the lotusses but of some water lilies.. so much for my impression of a great botanist...

In the bear cave there is a big room called the candles galerie.. and when you get there you know exactly why it's named that way.. It looks like there are candles everywhere..

as mentioned before, our tour guide didn't explain anything in english. Romanian was the only laguage he gave the tour in. But i was lucky enough to have someone around to explain the main highlights to me. Not that there was much time for that either.. But i used the time he was talking to get the shots i wanted (or could get)..

Baile Felix is a well known spa resort just 7 kilometers outside Oradea. In the main park in Baile Felix you find 2 wooden churches. One is open for visitors, the other is not open except for services..

With this one, we wondered what made the whole church black except a part in the middle..

i think.. i never know which one is which.. Well in the bear cave you'll see an impressive number of bith but it is the cave that has the densest number of hanging ones per square meter. A number of 280 in total.. It lookslike the whole ceiling is covered with them like some sort of weird hair..

Inside the bear cave there are many stalactites and stalacmites that have shaped themsleves in all kinds of forms. One of them is the priest that is standing in front of his altar..

Walking around in the bear cave i found shape that looked like miniature cities and castles. And i can imagine that with seeing those kind of shapes and forms one would believe in fairies and all kinds of other magical creatures..