Quite recently, I along with my family returned from a 7-days-long roadtrip in Romania, that for a couple of years represented a tradition and where for 10-14 days in a row we were traveling in our homecountry from north to south, from west to east, seeking for less known parts that deserve a bit more promotion since I always considered that Romania is a lot more than the home of Dracula.
Either way, for the last two years we had to give up on this 'tradition' due to all kinds of serious reasons, and when I least thought that we would ever be able to get back on it, my family decided that we should do it again in 2023, but in a shorter period of time and a bit chiller than how we used to.
To make it clearer, during the whole period of our roadtrip we used to go camping and every single day to be on the road to a new region of Romania after seeing at least 3-4 things per day, which was pretty exhausting but was definitely worth it.
This thing changed as the passing of time affects us all in different ways no matter the age we have, and this year we only focused on the region of Cluj which somehow we never explored too closely even though we crossed it many times during our trips.
One of the places that I kept hearing a lot about in the last 1-2 years is the Blue Lagoon of Cluj, being promoted a lot on social media with breathtaking scenery. So I thought that it would be a good opportunity to begin with this place my blog series of the discoveries we made in the Roadtrip of 2023.
However, exploring the Blue Lagoon happened quite late in our trip, hence why my hair looked so messy, but honestly, I always thought that my hair looked a lot healthier when spending more time outdoors than how it looks on a normal and boring day.
From my experience, seeing places in nature that are either a spring or a lake with interesting colors, you need to make your way towards them on a sunny day or during the winter when the contrast between water and the white scenery will make those places more beautiful.
Unfortunately, none of these was our situation as it was quite cloudy back in that day having rain over the night which made me already feel sad before reaching the Blue Lagoon expecting to see a murky lake rather than a serene one that I've seen on social media before. Happy or not, the water wasn't too murky, but the thing that the grey clouds were all around, made it almost no blue at all but maximum green... from time to time.
Another minus for this place comes from the side of being so easily accessed by anyone, being able to drive a car until you are just 200 meters away from the lagoon. And as we all know, when a place becomes so easy to be accessed by anyone, it mostly ends up being 'decorated' with garbage of all kinds, especially from those who either come for a BBQ in nature or to fish.
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With this thought, I started walking around, trying to get a bit further from where most of the people stop for pictures, looking for a cleaner and chiller place to enjoy the view, venturing on unknown paths and close to a forest that as beautiful it was looking, as scary it became when hearing lots of dogs barking and making me feel like I was pretty close to a sheepfold that represent a real danger in Romania.
So after walking for a bit and seeing that even though I was keeping myself close to the lagoon, there was no way to reach it or get a clear view without trees and bushes in front of my view angle, I returned to where I was taking the first pictures, making my way on the opposite direction for another attempt of surrounding the lagoon.
Even if I was still in the same place, the scenery was looking a lot more different on this side because of the angle that allowed me to get a new perspective over the whole place jumping from colorful trees and interesting formations to the lonely paths where cold colors were dominating the whole vibe.
But as interesting those formations seemed like, in reality, most of them were formed after some excavation activities that were still happening when we visited this place two weeks ago which along with all the noise and dust created, they also left a lot of garbage around and brought quite a significant influence over the landscape.
It's not my first time ending up in places like this one, but I'll never forget the disaster I saw at Geamana, praying to not ever see this chaos be repeated in my country. So I hope whatever these guys are doing in this place, will be kept under the control.
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Not long after making our way surrounding the Blue Lagoon from the left side, we ended up in a lot different place than what we've seen from the other attempts, feeling like our efforts were rewarded and also getting to enjoy a sky a bit more clear of clouds for a couple of minutes that unveiled a different face of the lagoon for us.
But as I mentioned before, the best we could enjoy was rather a green lagoon than a blue one which was entirely caused by the weather conditions but also by the season, there being sayings that the lake always looks different depending in the season you are visiting it. Hence why, if I will ever revisit this place, most likely I'll rediscover it in a new way, with new colors and a new scenery.
Being the last stop of the day before returning to the guest house that served as home for a couple of days, we decided to spend a few more minutes just sitting on the ground and enjoying the view which even though it wasn't as we hoped to see, it still felt like a bliss to be so close of nature and don't be bothered by anyone especially that we stayed in a region that is less accessed by the crowd.
Even though the Blue Lagoon doesn't share the same scenery as the one we've seen in Geamana a few years ago, they still have something in common - namely, the way they were formed.
Just like in the case of Geamana, the lagoon situated on the territory of Aghireșu also came out as a little catastrophe due to the excavation activities held for a kaolin mine which is some sort of white clay but with shades of yellow and green, that are a fairly good explanation why the lagoon mostly looks green when not being a sunny day outside or during the winter.
The good part though, is that those mining activities stopped at time, before sinking a whole town and destroying the villages nearby, which is what happened at Geamana.
But thinking about all the vehicles we noticed during our journey and all the sounds they were creating, makes me feel unsafe if this won't lead to a bigger disaster in time because the mining activity is still going on, but in a different place than under the lagoon.
The funny thing is that even though the lagoon is mostly composed of underground springs and the water accumulated after rains and snow, there is no fish to be taken into consideration even though there are still fishermen trying their luck from time to time.
We did see tadpoles here and there, but most likely they were tiny frogs since the lagoon becomes quite crowded with these small livings once in a while, so hopefully, this information will reach enough people to make it a less populated place and implicitly, with less garbage, or at all if possible.
Either way, even if we failed to see a Blue Lagoon as its name suggests, we still had a good time walking around the lake formed inside of a crater that served as a kaolin mine a while ago and which makes me crazy curious to see how it looks under the water and how deep this one is, but since water is still my biggest fear and there is not enough information with this purpose, I guess it will still take a while until satisfying my curiosity.
But along with the lake that it represents a chill place when not being surrounded by the category of people who spend time in nature either to listen to music and pollute the surroundings with garbage or noise, it remains a place that I recommend being seen, because everything looks pretty interesting from the water accumulation to all the reed surrounding it, and the incredible sand dunes that make it seem like being part of a different world and scenery not so common in Romania.
As I wasn't satisfied enough for not getting pictures with this place as its name promises, here is a shot from a fellow blogger who surprised a different scenery in spring.
But judging by all the information I got after doing my research, I ended up to the conclusion that there is no way to see the lagoon blue in any other season than winter/spring when the contrast between snow and water might make it look more blue than green and that all the pictures circulating on the internet are rather very edited than real, which I have no problem with as long as they don't create a fake promotion that in this case affects negatively due to those who are coming by and leave a lot of garbage behind.
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A bit of the 'sand dunes' adrenaline will be experienced from the way where you leave the car until reaching the lagoon, but I still recommend hiking those and walking around a lot more than we did as there is a Gorun forest nearby, as well as other small lagoons that aren't marked on the map but which are definitely a lot cleaner since people still don't know about them.
Reaching the Blue Lagoon can only happen by using a GPS and typing Laguna Albastra Cluj in the search bar, because the place is still at the beginning and there are no road signs leading to it. This one is located in Aghireșu which is a tiny and quiet village just 30 km away from Cluj, but which offers a lot of beautiful scenery.
Unfortunately, the last 4 kilometers on the way to the lagoon are quite bad, talking about an unpaved road with lots of bumps and pits that might end up not very friendly with all types of cars, but if you enjoy walks in nature or bike rides, you can cover this last part of the road either walking or biking. The efforts will be paid off for sure.
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additonally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.
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