5 Hidden Destinations in Europe

Romania

Destinations

Sinca Veche Monastery (The Temple of Ursitelor)

Romania · Brașov County, Transylvania

Deep within a remote Romanian hillside, an ancient underground temple carved into solid rock pulsates with mysterious energy, its origins lost to time.

Known as the Temple of Ursitelor (or 'Fairy Temple'), this enigmatic subterranean complex features nine rooms, two altars, and a bizarre, op...

Lacul Cuejdel (Lake Cuejdel)

Romania · Neamț County, Moldova Region

Imagine a lake hidden in the Carpathian Mountains where entire islands, complete with their own forests, drift aimlessly across the surface like miniature, arboreal argosies.

Born from a series of massive landslides, Lacul Cuejdel is Europe's largest natural floating island lake, a surreal landscape where sections...

Scărișoara Ice Cave (Peștera Scărișoara)

Romania · Alba County, Apuseni Mountains

Deep beneath the rolling hills of Romania's Apuseni Mountains lies a subzero wonderland, home to one of Europe's largest underground glaciers that has persisted for millennia.

Descend into this ancient limestone cave to discover a spectacular perennial ice block, formed over 3,500 years ago, that measures an astoni...

The Drowned Church of Geamăna

Romania · Alba County

In the heart of Romania, a picturesque village was deliberately sacrificed to a rising tide of toxic mining waste, leaving only its church steeple to hauntingly drift above a crimson, metallic lake.

This macabre modern Atlantis was intentionally submerged in the late 1970s to serve as a tailings pond for the nearby Roşia Poieni copper mi...

Salina Turda

Romania · Cluj County

Beneath the Transylvanian earth, an ancient salt mine has been transformed into a subterranean sci-fi amusement park, complete with a Ferris wheel, bowling alley, and a lake with rowboats, all 120 meters deep.

Descending into Salina Turda is like stepping onto another planet, with colossal caverns carved by centuries of salt mining now housing an o...