The mineral springs resort of Băile Govora in southwestern Romania is working to transform itself yet again into an attractive tourist destination. The resort, which was very popular with local tourists before 1989, has attracted EU funds to refurbish its urban infrastructure and one of the hotels.

The re-opening date is still uncertain but it is nice to see how EU Funds go for the rehabilitation of Art Nouveau buildings. Others like Constanta Casino in Romania are going to be rebuilt also co-funded with European funds.

After years of decline, taking a step along the Romanian spa tourism, the resort still looks for the holiday plans of a generation of tourists for whom “bathing” is at most a faded illustration from the collection of memories of parents or grandparents.

If he is a man to whom Băile Govora owes his decisive fixation, more than a century ago, on the map of the balneo-climatic baths it is Colonel Nicolae Popescu-Zorileanu. Regiment physician at the base, then Director of the Medico-Military Interns and Medical Engineer of Govora Spa Resort – as presented as the author of a consistent series of publications – Colonel Zorileanu dedicated, at the end of the 19th century, years of fine research , reports and articles on the curative qualities of mineral waters in Govora.

The Academic Library, for example, indexes in the National Retrospective Bibliography a first memorandum that the military doctor Zorileanu, a physician at the time, presented to the “Ministry of Domains, Agriculture, Industry and Trade”: “Mineral waters from Govora of their medical use. In the year of 1887 “.

The first bathing facility was built between 1887 and 1889 under the leadership of the French engineer Papon de Larneigne. Equipped with 20 cabins and 2 pools, it was inaugurated on July 1, 1889.

The head of government of these times, I.C. Bratianu, was sick of chronically rheumatism, and he promoted the spa in order to feel healthier. “During the war between the Romanians, the Russians and the Turks (1877-1878), I fell seriously ill with rheumatism at my knees. We used all the possible and known treatments of medicine, but without any results. For 10 years I was the slave of this disease, and only after I found the mineral waters of Govora and after a three-year cure, I was completely cured without drinking the smallest amount of iodine by the gastrointestinal tract. ”

After, the project also attracted many other visitors.

In 1913, the Govora resort had 1,309 rooms for accommodation,

After 1948, the year when the communist regime practically took ownership of the entire resort, Băile Govora became a permanent destination for the popular mass tourism. The Communists build a lot and develop it intensively for the “working people”: the house of culture, the workers’ clubs, the sports grounds, the camping, the sewerage, the central heating and also new housing blocks.

Enjoy the following video about the resort:

More informacion HERE.