Cheile Turului is a picturesque and little known canyon located near Cluj, Romania. It’s a bit hard to get to. It’s off the main roads, and one has to travel on unpaved country roads and through a couple of villages to get to it, but the effort is worth it.

I’m not sure how to best describe the place. One normally associates canyons with climbing up a mountain or at least a sizable hill. Not so with Cheile Turului. You simply travel along on fairly level ground, climbing imperceptibly, until you get to it, and all of a sudden, you’re faced with this gorge that’s lined with serious stone walls on either side. It’s as if the ground opened up to create it. There are crevices and mini-caves almost everywhere one looks. I’m sure spelunkers and climbers would have a field day there.

I visited it in November of 2002 with my brother, on a fairly cold day, and photographed it. Unfortunately, I took most of the photos with my camcorder, so the resolution is fairly low. Some are even captures from video, so they’re at 640×480. Nonetheless, I wanted to share them because it’s a beautiful place to visit.

A single cow was out to pasture, grazing peacefully nearby. It was thoroughly unimpressed with my camera. Judging the quality of the photos, I can see why… 🙂