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Things to do in Băile Herculane

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Băile Herculane

A spa in a narrow gorge of the Cerna, used by Roman legionaries who dedicated their springs to Hercules and rebuilt in the 1850s as a Habsburg resort. The Austrian bath houses in the old centre are magnificent and most of them are ruins. The restoration argument here has run for thirty years and is only now moving. What is beyond dispute is the setting: the Domogled ridge stands over the town and the national park behind it holds the richest butterfly fauna in the country.

5 places on record

Things to do

5
  1. Banat Sphinx

    Viewpoint · 2 hr

    A rock profile on the Domogled slope above the town, reached on a marked path of about an hour, looking down the length of the Cerna valley.

  2. Cerna Cast Iron Bridge

    Bridge

    A cast iron footbridge over the Cerna of 1850s Austrian manufacture, linking the two halves of the old spa and still the best place to look up the gorge.

  3. Domogled Valea Cernei National Park

    Park · 5 hr

    A national park of about 61,000 hectares along the Cerna, holding Black Pine forest found nowhere else and the country's richest butterfly and moth fauna. The Cerna valley road runs up the middle of it.

  4. Hercules Statue

    Monument · 30 min

    A bronze Hercules cast in 1847 from Ottoman cannon, standing on the square that carries his name, replacing the Roman dedications the legionaries left at the springs.

  5. Neptune Baths

    Landmark · 30 min

    The grandest of the Habsburg bath houses, finished in 1886, closed since 2000 and standing empty above the river while its ownership is argued. It can be seen from the outside and its condition is the town's whole story.

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