12 Ghostly Industrial Relics: Factories & Mines Frozen in Their Prime
4. Salina Turda Salt Mine, Romania
A surreal descent into the Earth, Salina Turda is a former Roman salt mine that’s been everything from military shelter to cheese locker—and is now part amusement park, part subterranean museum. Visitors descend into caverns encrusted with salt crystals, some as large as cathedrals. In its central chamber, a Ferris wheel spins under disco lights, paddle boats glide across an underground lake, and echoing laughter bounces off walls carved by centuries of labor. It’s part surreal wonderland, part post-industrial dreamscape. The only thing more strange than its present is its past—a history preserved in salt and silence.
