Overview
About this location
Covasna: the resort where the main therapeutic factor is a gas, not water. The cardiology hospital's mofette covers 100 sqm, with a 70 cm layer of CO₂ at 89.8% concentration. A cardiovascular profile, and a serious contraindication list that includes asthma and COPD.
Weather – 3 day forecast
Details
General Information
Water temperature
Cold carbogaseous springs; no published source gives a measured temperature. The main therapeutic factor is the mofette gas, not the water
Water type
Mineral waters with CO₂, ferruginous, carbogaseous
Entry price
There is no public strand with mineral water; access to the mofettes and carbonated baths is through the treatment bases and spa hotels
Accessibility
Open year-round; the treatment bases and the hotels' indoor pools operate permanently
Wellness
Therapeutic indications
Mofette therapy with a cardiovascular profile — the indications named by the Dr. Benedek Géza Hospital: hypertension, chronic ischaemic heart disease, the state after a myocardial infarction, chronic obliterating arteriopathy. The resort treatment bases also work on digestive, hepatobiliary, metabolic, gynaecological and locomotor conditions. Published contraindications include bronchial asthma, COPD, atrial fibrillation and flutter, aortic and mitral stenosis
About Covasna
Covasna is the one resort on this site where the main therapeutic factor is not water at all. It is carbon dioxide coming out of the ground, and you take the treatment standing up, dressed, in a concrete pit, breathing normal air while the gas covers you to the waist. That is a mofette, and Covasna has more of them, and larger ones, than anywhere else in the country.
The town calls itself the resort of a thousand springs of health, and the mineral water is genuinely everywhere. But the institution that made Covasna what it is opened in 1960 and treats hearts, not joints: the Dr. Benedek Géza Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Hospital, the only one in Romania that combines standard cardiology with a balneal cure. If you are picking a resort by diagnosis, that sentence is the one to read twice.
There is no public strand with mineral water in Covasna, and there never has been. The town sits at 550 to 600 m in a depression under the Vrancea mountains, 31 km from Sfântu Gheorghe, and it works all twelve months, because none of what it offers depends on the weather.
What a mofette session actually is
- The hospital's mofette covers 100 sqm and takes up to 100 people at once, which makes it the largest purpose-built one anywhere. In its twin pits a layer of carbon dioxide about 70 cm deep settles, measured at 89.8% concentration and 267.3 pCi/l of natural radioactivity.
- The gas rising from the ground is given as up to 98% carbon dioxide, with methane, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, helium and hydrogen sulphide making up the rest. Because CO₂ is heavier than air it pools at the bottom and stays there, which is the whole reason the pit works.
- Sessions build up rather than start at full length: five minutes on the first day, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty, and twenty minutes is the ceiling. A minimum of five days is needed before any effect is expected.
- You keep your clothes on and your head stays above the gas. The mechanism is absorption through the skin, which dilates peripheral vessels and lowers the load on the heart, not inhalation.
- A session is prescribed after a medical consultation. This is the part people skip, and it is the part that matters most, for the reason in the next card.
A cardiovascular resort, first of all
- The mofette's named indications are hypertension, chronic ischaemic heart disease, the state after a myocardial infarction, and chronic obliterating arteriopathy. Those four are what the hospital treats and what its reputation rests on.
- The Covasna Method, as the hospital calls it, is medication plus kinesiotherapy, individual or in groups, plus the local natural factors: mofette, mineral water cure and the strongly ionised mountain air. Removing risk factors is the stated principle, not curing anything in a fortnight.
- Around the hospital, the resort's treatment bases also work on digestive, hepatobiliary, metabolic, gynaecological and locomotor conditions, with warm carbogaseous baths, drinking cures, inhalations, mud wraps, electrotherapy and hydrotherapy.
- Dermatological claims for Covasna circulate in the press, quoting a hotel balneologist rather than the hospital. We are not listing them as an indication, because the institution that would have to stand behind them does not publish them.
Long, and published
- Respiratory conditions are the first block: lung disease in general, chronic respiratory insufficiency, bronchial asthma, COPD, ventilatory dysfunction. A gas pit is the wrong place for a set of lungs that already struggles.
- Cardiac contraindications sit right next to the cardiac indications, which is the counter-intuitive part: atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, aortic and mitral stenosis, advanced cardiac decompensation. Having a heart condition is not by itself a ticket into the mofette.
- Also named: cancer diagnosed and treated within the last ten years, malignant tumours, epilepsy, recent surgery, anaemia, haemorrhage, psychoses, venereal and infectious disease, and anything in an acute phase.
- This is one of the most detailed contraindication lists published by any resort in Romania, and the length of it is a good sign rather than a bad one. It is also the reason the consultation on arrival is not a formality.
Cold, carbonated, and uncounted
- The waters are carbogaseous, ferruginous mineral waters, cold at the source. They are used warmed for the carbogaseous baths, and unheated for the drinking cure.
- No source we could find publishes a measured temperature for them. We used to give 15 to 20 °C, and we have taken the range off this page rather than keep a figure nobody stands behind. Ask at the treatment base if the exact number matters to your cure.
- The thousand springs in the town's slogan is a slogan. Nobody publishes a count, some springs are captured for hotel treatments and others are free to drink from in the street.
- Balta Dracului, in the town centre under a metal grill, is a permanently erupting mud volcano with sulphurous gas. Its name goes back to 1681 and it was documented as a popular curative bath from 1850. It is no longer used for treatment and is now the symbol of the resort.
An 1886 funicular and a fairy fortress
- The Planul Înclinat in Valea Zânelor is a gravity-powered inclined railway built in 1886 by the engineer Emil Lux and opened in 1890, used to bring timber down from Comandău. The town hall calls it a technical monument unique in Europe.
- Cetatea Zânelor, a Dacian fortress site, sits further up the same valley, with a waterfall roughly 100 to 150 m upstream of the water plant.
- Two named mofettes besides the hospital's, Bene and Bardocz, appear on the town hall's own list of objectives. Hotel treatment bases run their own, so most visitors never see the public ones.
- A tourist train runs two routes in season, Clermont to Cetatea Zânelor and Clermont to the Inclined Plane, which is the easiest way to see the valley without a car.
Priced as a stay, not as a ticket
- A balneal package here is normally seven nights with full board, the medical consultation on arrival and three procedures a day on the doctor's prescription. Mofette access and CO₂ baths are usually inside the package.
- Travel agencies publish seven-night packages from roughly 1,300 lei per person at two and three star hotels, and 2,500 to 3,000 lei at the premium end. Off season, between October and April, the same operators quote 20 to 35% less.
- Those are agency figures, not operator price lists, and they move. Take them as an order of magnitude and confirm with the hotel.
- There is no entry ticket to a public mineral pool, because there is no public mineral pool. Access to the mofettes and the carbogaseous baths goes through the treatment bases and the spa hotels.
Under the Vrancea mountains
- Covasna is 31 km from Sfântu Gheorghe and sits at 550 to 600 m in a sheltered depression. Brașov is about 70 km away, which puts it within a comfortable drive of the whole Braşov cluster.
- The resort works all twelve months. Nothing here is seasonal, because gas and heated mineral water do not care what the weather is doing.
- Băile Balvanyos is roughly 30 km north, with the same carbogaseous geology and a different set of hotels, so the two are natural alternatives to each other.
- Accommodation is entirely in hotels and guesthouses, several of which run their own accredited treatment bases. Where you sleep decides which base treats you.
Where the figures come from
- The mofette's dimensions, gas concentration, radioactivity, session length and the indication and contraindication lists come from the Dr. Benedek Géza Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Hospital in Covasna and from press coverage that quotes its doctors.
- Balta Dracului, the Planul Înclinat, Cetatea Zânelor and the named mofettes come from the list of objectives published by Covasna city hall.
- The package prices come from travel agency listings for the 2026 season and are indicative.
- This page describes what the operators publish. It is not medical advice, and mofette therapy in particular is prescribed by a doctor after a consultation.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much is the entrance fee at Covasna?
There is no public strand with mineral water; access to the mofettes and carbonated baths is through the treatment bases and spa hotels. Prices can change, so check the official information before visiting.
What is the water temperature at Covasna?
Cold carbogaseous springs; no published source gives a measured temperature. The main therapeutic factor is the mofette gas, not the water.
Is Covasna open in winter?
Open year-round; the treatment bases and the hotels' indoor pools operate permanently.