holidaying with my parents: baile felix/ciucea

so my parents invited me to see how the spend their holidays. weren't you always curious what your parents do when they have nothing to do, on the contrary, expressly forbid themselves to do anything? no? just me? okay then.
so i went to baile felix (4 hour train trip to oradea - i think the distance is 130 km or something similarly ridiculous, but whatever, it was raining all the time that day, so a train trip was more entertaining than sitting home moping; then a tram trip across oradea to the mysterious bus stop that has buses going to the resort, then fending off an unsavoury individual who offered me to drive me there in the back of a black van...seriously?). ok, getting to destination, check.
the resort is something built around thermal water springs, so yeah, a holiday for old people, totally. 2 days and a half there was probably a very good amount of time to stay. especially when sleeping 10 hrs per night because i don't sleep very much when i'm on my own. weird, that.

this is in front of my parents' hotel/. my first reaction? "hmmm, crimson and gold. lannister internal conflict". i am very smart and witty. 

the picture taking right before the posing for the picture. this is in the parklet next to the hotel, where they wanted to show me the exotic trees and stuff

aaand also, there are 2 churches within a 100-meter radius from the hotel. both wooden churches, but this one is older  and has been transplanted directly from maramures...

...and this other one is more like an actual functional church and souvenir/selling spot. is it obvious that i liked the other one much better? i even bought a souvenir from there, just out of spite. 

small cutesy angel in frount of the souvenir church. my mum had grown quite fond of it, and i like its little knee.

yeah, i forgot to mention that my parents are regulars in this resort. it's only their second year staying at the same hotel (an obvious upgrade) but they used to come even when they were younger than me. so not only they know it by heart (it's a tiny place), but they know about the changes from year to year too. like, oh, they used to have that music stand over there...they built that pool only last year, blah.

this is my favourite take of the turtle pond in the park. quite a number of turtles there, and people crowding around to point at them and feed them soppy bread which stays uneaten and scums on the edge of the pond...ugh. otherwise, lovely stuff.  

obviously taking in the last of the sun. 

lo, the lily ponds. this is the pink lily territory / a species that's definitely non-local. yeah you can't even see the flowers  properly in this one, but i don't even find them particularly attractive/looking. they just are there, on a large surface. 

i like the white ones much better. 

ok, visiting the old church. we did that at all hours, since it was one of the about 2 things to visit there. but it's very nice.  i always shy from taking pics inside of churches though, so this is all you get. 

obviously, the main attraction of the resort is going to the pool. specially for lazy people, my parents' hotel has its own pools, which means you don't have to walk for 2 minutes down the road to get to the public pools.

9 a.m. not many people, outside is still chilly, the water is WARM. 

i actually loved spending time in the pools, though i only did like 10 laps of the colder/ bigger one all in all. and though i felt compelled, on my first day in (it was late-ish afternoon and it was raining over us as we were lazing about in water) to tell my mum all about the hot springs scenes in "game of thrones". huh.

morning exercise, with my father joining in like a champ, and me standing by the side of the pool, laughing pretty hard. 

we actually had one and a half decent days for even suntanning, which we did conscientiously, because  that and eating seemed the only options.

okay, we also took after-lunch and after-dinner walks around. to the public pools....

mum sampling the local plums. 

derelict but still partly charming park

i have no pics from the horrendous souvenir-selling, fried fish and icecream and soda and corn on the con and popcorn and whatever - selling section of the place. they are the same everywhere, aren't they. even the local mini-vegggie-market place was pretty dismal.

but on our way back (by car- i was given a lift back to cluj) we stopped at the ciucea "mausoleum", which  is a memorial built to one of our poets by his widow, over 20 years. she did the mosaic herself. this is a place that i must have visited about 5 times in my life, always with my family. i think my father has a particular thing for it. 

me to my father : " you know, my friend elizabeth mosaicked her entire kitchen herself and  it must have taken her  way less time. bout, of course, she's an actual artist. way less interesting."

poem by the dead poet, about being dead and how zen it is. i am laughing about it, but i was brought up to love this stuff, so please: i'm the only one allowed to mock it here, got it?

the actual mausoleum was locked up, duh, but we peeked inside through the doors.

ANOTHER small maramures-type wooden church. this is from 1575 and was transplanted there  through the patronage of the poet's widow. first time i visited this one: it's really a little gem. 

i was admiring this icon (would really take it home) while my mother got into a real heart-to-heart with the head nun.  

best water: straight from the rock. 

shaking the feeling that i forgot to write about something that was...relevant somehow...tty, i have a bus to catch. again.