Overview
About this location
Băile Bala, Mehedinți County: a state-run complex operated by TBRCM, with pension-house treatment tickets and 15 series in 2026. Sulphurous oligomineral water and sapropelic mud, season 28 April to 23 December.
Weather – 3 day forecast
Details
General Information
Water temperature
25–26 °C at the springs (outdoor pools pass 36 °C in summer through solar heating)
Water type
Mesothermal, weakly sulphurous, oligomineral (hypotonic) waters, plus sapropelic mud
Entry price
From ~274 lei / person / night in a package with full board and 4 procedures a day (per-procedure prices are not published)
Accessibility
Season 28 April – 23 December (procedures Monday to Friday only – arrivals on Sunday)
Wellness
Therapeutic indications
Rheumatic, digestive tract conditions, peripheral nervous system conditions
About Băile Bala
Băile Bala is a state balneal complex in northern Mehedinți County, run by TBRCM, the company under the National House of Public Pensions. That single fact is the most useful thing on this page: if you are entitled to a pension-house treatment ticket, Bala is one of the resorts where you can spend it, and there are fifteen intake series in 2026, from 27 April to 6 December.
The water description this page carried was wrong in almost every particular. We listed it as chloride-sodium, iodinated, brominated, weakly radioactive and semi-hypertonic at around 9 g/l, with radon. The operator publishes the opposite: mesothermal, weakly sulphurous, oligomineral, meaning a mineralisation well under 1 g/l. Radon appears in no source about Bala at all.
Two smaller corrections while we are here. The resort is in Oltenia, in the hills of northern Mehedinți at 400 m, not in Transylvania as our page description claimed. And it does not run all year: the season is 28 April to 23 December, with procedures on weekdays only.
Oligomineral, and lightly sulphurous
- The operator names the natural cure factors as mesothermal, weakly sulphurous, oligometallic springs plus sapropelic mud. Oligomineral and hypotonic put the mineralisation in the range of 0.52 to 0.72 g/l, an order of magnitude below what this page used to claim.
- The springs rise on both banks of the Chiciora valley, along a tectonic fault. Temperature at the spring is around 25 to 26 °C. In the outdoor pools the water passes 36 °C in summer, but that is the sun doing the work, not the spring.
- Radon and weak radioactivity have been removed from our data. Neither appears in any source about Bala, and a radon figure at another Romanian resort turned out to be a unit error copied from page to page.
- No analysis bulletin is public. Nobody publishes who ran it, when, or the concentration of hydrogen sulphide. The balneological study most often cited dates from 1980, and the mud is described as holding 43.9 percent water.
Five groups, from the operator
- Degenerative rheumatic conditions, named as cervical, dorsal and lumbar spondylosis, arthrosis and polyarthrosis. Inflammatory rheumatic conditions. Abarticular rheumatic conditions, named as tendinosis, tendomyositis, tendoperiostosis and periarthritis.
- Conditions of the digestive tract and its annexed glands. Conditions of the peripheral nervous system.
- Dermatological and endocrine conditions were on our page and are on nobody else's. Both have been removed. The English version of the same field said metabolic where the Romanian said digestive; the operator says digestive, so that is what both now read.
- Our page said nervous conditions, which is vague enough to mislead. The operator says peripheral nervous system, meaning neuritis and radiculopathy, not central nervous disease and not neurosis.
None published for Bala
- Neither the operator nor any institution publishes a contraindication list for this resort, despite it being a state complex with a doctor on site and a medical consultation built into the package.
- What exists is the general advice to see a doctor first, with the note that some procedures are ruled out in cardiovascular, infectious and oncological disease.
- Since the package includes a medical consultation on arrival, the practical answer is that the assessment happens there. That is different from a published list, and worth knowing before you book rather than after.
- The internal cure indications, drinking the water, come with their own logic. If you are going for the digestive indications, that is a conversation to have with the resort doctor on the first day.
A real treatment base, not a leisure pool
- The procedures listed by the operator: mineral water baths in tubs and in the pool, galvanic baths, mud and paraffin wraps, aerosols, diadynamic currents, ultrasound, short waves, TENS and interferential currents, solux, laser therapy and therapeutic massage. Packages also mention kinetotherapy.
- There is an indoor pool with mesothermal water and an outdoor one. Separately from the complex, the mud pools are traditionally split between men and women and are used mostly by people from the surrounding villages.
- Hotel Ceres is a three-star property at 400 m altitude, in service since 1977, with 206 places according to the operator. A figure of 208 places in 104 double rooms circulates elsewhere. There is a restaurant with a dietary menu, a terrace, a fitness room, wireless and parking.
- A sauna and a salt room were approved in December 2023 with a sixty-day deadline. Neither appears on the operator's list of services as updated in June 2026. We could find no confirmation that they were built, and none that the project was dropped.
- For context on the direction of travel: in 2016 the regional press described an outdoor pool in ruins, full of dry branches and rubbish, with a collapsed roof. Over two million lei went into the place in the years that followed, including new short-wave, electrotherapy and ultrasound equipment.
Season, series and arrival day
- The 2026 season runs 28 April to 23 December. Treatment ticket series start on 27 April and the last one begins on 5 December.
- Procedures are given Monday to Friday, four a day. Nothing is scheduled at the weekend. Stays start on a Sunday.
- No daily opening hours are published, for the treatment base, the indoor pool or the outdoor one. That is why this page shows no structured schedule.
- Phone 0252 386 065 or 0252 386 066, email statiuneabala@gmail.com. The address is Str. Principală, Bala, Mehedinți County, postcode 227010.
Packages, not per-procedure prices
- Bala sells stays, not individual treatments. For 2026 the published packages run from 3,080 lei for two people over five nights to 6,578 lei over twelve, which works out at roughly 274 to 308 lei per person per night.
- The package covers accommodation, full board, the medical consultation, four procedures a day from Monday to Friday, access to the mesothermal pool, the fitness room, wireless and parking. Holiday vouchers are accepted.
- The figures this page used to show, 70 lei a day for full treatment plus 25 for a bath and 30 for a massage, appear in no source. Per-procedure prices are simply not published, and neither is a day-visitor rate for the outdoor pool.
- For scale, three nights with full board and four procedures a day cost 500 lei in March 2021, which makes the current level plausible rather than surprising.
Status, access and what is around
- Bala holds two separate designations. It became a balneoclimatic resort in 2016 on the strength of the mesothermal springs and the mud, and in December 2020 the commune was recognised as a tourist resort of local interest. It is also on the National Route of Historic Balneal Towns and Resorts.
- The commune sits in northern Mehedinți, with Baia de Aramă and Izverna to the north and Gorj County to the east. It has fifteen villages and a documentary record going back to June 1415.
- Access runs along DJ 670, from the DN 67 junction at Malovăț through Băivănești, Balta and Ponoarele to Baia de Aramă. DN 67 is the road between Drobeta-Turnu Severin and Târgu Jiu. No source publishes the road distance to either city, so we do not state one.
- Nearby: God's Bridge at Ponoarele, Tismana monastery, Baia de Aramă, the Danube gorges and the Iron Gates dam. Inside the commune there is the Cârșu Roman fort, the Petre Scurtu house museum, a watermill at Molani and wooden churches at Comănești and Dâlma.
- One trap to know about. The tourist potential section on the operator's own page for Bala describes Caransebeș, Oravița, Anina, Semenic and Reșița, which are in Banat, several counties away. It is recycled text from another of their units, and it has misled more than one travel article.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much is the entrance fee at Bala Baths?
From ~274 lei / person / night in a package with full board and 4 procedures a day (per-procedure prices are not published). Prices can change, so check the official information before visiting.
What is the water temperature at Bala Baths?
25–26 °C at the springs (outdoor pools pass 36 °C in summer through solar heating).
Is Bala Baths open in winter?
Season 28 April – 23 December (procedures Monday to Friday only – arrivals on Sunday).
What is the therapeutic profile of Bala Baths?
Bala Baths is a balneary resort with a profile covering: Rheumatic, digestive tract conditions, peripheral nervous system conditions. Whether a balneary cure is appropriate is a decision to make together with a physician.