The Băile Herculane resort is gradually regaining its past glory. Some of the period buildings and the stone bridge have been restored, and the banks of the Cerna River are on site and being revitalized with the help of volunteers.
The banks of the Cerna are redeveloped. Photo: Herculane Project. Facebook
In the historical center of Băile Herculane (Caraș-Severin), several pits dug over time, where sulphurous water from several springs that flowed towards the Cerna River accumulated, were used for a long time as treatment places for resort guests.
Tourists went down to the puddles on the water’s edge by the stone bridge in Piața Hercule, but around outside the craters with sulphurous water, they could not find any place arranged to relax. The banks of the Cerna recently entered the construction site, and with the help of volunteers and some public and private funding, members of a non-governmental organization (the Locus Association) gradually returned them to the community.
“The project aims to revitalize the banks of the Cerna River through three packages of educational, community and ecological activities and aims to reconnect the local and transient community with the banks of the Cerna River and the thermal springs, research and preserve the natural ecosystem and propose alternative, sustainable and reversible interventions regarding the regeneration of some green spaces”inform the representatives of the NGO.
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Baile Herculane Photo Herculane project (2) jpg
The construction site started in June, and currently works are taking place on the arrangement of the alleys, the future green spaces on the banks of the Cerna and the tubs – the former craters used for bathing by tourists.
“Stage I is almost done! We spread the fertile ground and the lanes are 80 percent picketed. A layer of crushed stone has been laid, and then we will put another layer of 0.25 stone and the final layer of limestone“, informed the representatives of the Locus Association, on the “Herculane Project” Facebook page.
The project is far-reaching, say its initiators, and at the end there will be a green space on the banks of the Cerna, with alleys and relaxation areas connected to tubs with sulphurous waters, the non-governmental organization informed.
“We are arranging the baths and green space, completing the empress Sissi promenade, building changing booths, state seats, a relaxation area and beach, and organizing greening campaigns. We bring you closer to nature and the thermal waters we all love. All interventions are reversible and are executed with natural materials, such as wood, stone, canvas”the association says.
The project received a financing of 50,000 euros from a bank and is supported by donations and volunteers. In recent years, the association has also been involved in the safekeeping of one of the most valuable historical monuments in the resort, the Neptun Baths Complex, ranked among the seven most endangered monuments and heritage sites in Europe.
The train station in Herculane will be rehabilitated
The Băile Neptun complex was built between 1883 and 1886, on the right bank of the Cerna and was connected to the opposite bank by a cast-iron bridge – which also became a historical monument. Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and his wife, Elisabeta (Sissi), guests of the resort on Valea Cernai, stayed here several times.
Recently, the Stone Bridge in Băile Herculane, which connects Cernei Street and Hercules Square, was also rehabilitated, which is in a visible state of decay. The works were financed with European funds and restored the spectacular appearance of the bridge over the Cerna, dating back to 1865. The station at the entrance to the Băile Herculane resort, built in the middle of the 19th century (video), will also be rehabilitated.
On the other hand, another historical monument in the Herculaneum Baths, the cast-iron bridge in front of the Neptun Baths, old from the 19th century, is in an advanced state of decay, access to it being stopped for this reason.
The story of the Băile Herculane resort
The thermal springs at Băile Herculane originate from the volcanic activity in this area.
“There was only one mountain where the river Cerna now flows. We don’t even need a great fantasy, so that looking at the allocation of the shores split like two huge slabs, we can stick them together in our imagination, making them one again. What a fearful boiling that must have been, when the hot lava fought with the giant mountain to find respite from the prison of the Platonic empire. With the birth of the great crack in the mountain, which forms the bed of the Cerna, hot water erupted from countless holes, in some places spreading the smell of fire, and in others only lumps of steam. These are today’s hot springs, sulphurous and salty”informed in the 1900s the doctor George Vuia, from the Băile Herculane resort.
The Romans established the resort in the Banat Mountains in the second century. The baths were in the vicinity of Mehadia (ancient Ad Mediam) and near Orșova (ancient Dierna) – the place through which the armies led by Emperor Trajan crossed the Danube to invade Dacia.
The ruins of the Roman resort were unearthed in the 18th century, after centuries of earth and forest hiding them from humans. The ancient Ad Aquas Herculi Sacras was transformed in the 19th century by the Habsburgs into an attractive resort, often visited by members of the imperial family.
In the 20th century, the communist regime expanded the Băile Herculane resort around its 19th century historic center. Some historical buildings were no longer protected, instead, hotel complexes with over 100 rooms were built, intended for mass tourism. The Băile Herculane resort went into decline after 1990, with the decrease in the number of tourists and the lack of investment in tourist services.
The period buildings have been left to decay, including the landmark railway station over a century and a half old, and some of the grand hotels built in the 1960s and 1970s have either been closed or have been operating at extremely reduced capacity.
In the old center, some period buildings have been restored in recent years, as well as the stone bridge over the Cerna, instead, other historical monuments in Băile Herculane, such as the pavilions with baths arranged in the 19th century, the Băile Neptun Ensemble and the cast-iron bridge is in danger of collapsing from the ruin.
