A small European city is at once a thriving university town with music festivals and a jazz scene, and a quiet, traditional place where time seems to slow down.
Beyond the world of UEFA Europa League fandom and East Europe, Cluj-Napoca remains one of the lesser known second cities. This is the case despite it being just behind Bucharest in Romania largest settlement charts and having a huge amount going for it.
When I went to Cluj five years ago, I did so because my girlfriend picked it out as a destination within our budget at the time. Plane tickets were a cost of a round in London, while the - admittedly smokey smelling - apartment we stayed in less than £100 for five days. Things have changed a little now - both in terms of global inflation and Club becoming a little better known and more upmarket - but the city is still very cheap.
Rent is 80% lower than London, a three course meal for two costs £35, half a litre of draught beer will set you back £2 and a packet of cigarettes is around the £4 mark, according to Numbeo's cost of living index.
What sets Cluj apart from other sizeable Romanian cities is its student population. It has 11 universities and more than 100,000 students living in the city, meaning there is almost one student for every four people in the city.
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Inside the magnificent salt mines (Getty Images)Their presence is partly why Cluj has won a reputation as an art and festival hub of Eastern Europe. Electric Castle, which won the best medium-sized festival at the 2019 European Festival Awards, takes place in the shadow of a spectacular, very Transylvanian looking Banffy Castle.
Another major electronic musical festival, Untold, goes for Tomorrowland levels of epic set production and was attended by 420,000 people last year, the central park in Cluj becoming swamped by revellers over a weekend in August. In 2022 the festival was judged to be the fifth best in the world by Vibrate.
A big part of the cultural scene, we discovered while hopping from cocktail bar to cocktail bar, is jazz. Casa Jazz is a lovely place to relax with a drink and some soothing tones, located as it is in a beautiful historical building owned by a family of German luxury upholsterers in the 18th century. Jazz in the Park runs at the end of June and was named best small festival 2019.
Outside of festival weekends, the city is quiet. It is a big place without the hustle, bustle and packed streets that can be found in most of the UK's bigger settlements. The 15th century administrative buildings of the old town and the cobbled streets in front of them help give the impression Cluj is partly frozen in time.
The museum and gallery scene in Cluj is not extensive, but during my visit a friendly local suggested we visit the Museum of Pharmacy. For close to 500 years Romanians have been whipping up potions and balms in the museum building, which now houses an intriguing collection of gory tools and suspect medicinal recipes.
A slightly bigger attraction is the salt mines which sit a little way outside the city. The Turda mines are buried deep in the depths of Transylvania and are the results of decades of excavating a huge salt deposit that formed following the evaporation of the sea that covered the entire region millions of years ago.
Now, salt from Turda could meet the world's sodium chloride requirement for 60 years, if its work as a tourist destination dries up. I was blown away by the scale of the mine when I went. The ceilings stretch into the sky to dizzying heights, making visitors feel as if they're in a vast, glittering cathedral. The wooden, partially see-through walkways around the eaves of the building are certainly not for the faint of heart or, as I found, the vertiginous.
Despite these attractions and being Romania's second city, few tourists make it to Cluj, making it the perfect place to explore having found cheap accommodation. The city has received high praise on Tripadvisor which describes it as the "unofficial capital of Transylvania". It may not be as vampire or bat ridden as this mantle may suggest, but the nearby Apuseni Mountains and sprawling forests are not only beautiful, but harbour a healthy bear population.
Right now it's possible to catch a Wizz Air return flight from London Luton to Cluj at the beginning of February for just £45.
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