The Story of Amara, From a Wooden Tub by the Lake to an Interwar Luxury Resort

Amara lives more through memories than through its present-day identity: memories of the interwar period, when the small health oasis had luxury hotels and refined restaurants, and of the communist era, when three hotels and a modern treatment center turned the entire village into an open-air resort.

Its origin story begins with a legend, as many Romanian spa towns do. But Amara’s history also centers on Dumitru Seceleanu, a major landowner from the Bărăgan region. He reportedly recovered movement in a paralyzed hand after washing with mud from the lake, and his name became linked to the resort’s foundation.

In a testimony held by the National Museum of Agriculture in Slobozia, Seceleanu recalled that doctors in Bucharest had failed to treat his rheumatism. One advised him to seek baths using Amara’s water and mud. Seceleanu said he applied heated mud to his arm, warmed himself by the stove, rested afterward, and repeated the treatment for 30 to 40 days. He said he recovered and then decided to build a bathing facility on the lakeshore.

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Around 1910, I found that my right hand had become paralyzed because of rheumatism.

Whether the treatment cured him remains uncertain, but Amara’s mud was already known for its reputed properties. Petru Poni became the first scientist cited in the article as having established its therapeutic effects, in 1887. He described the mud as having a slightly sweet, slightly salty and occasionally bitter taste. German doctor Hermann Brehmer later compared the Romanian mud with that of Franzensbad, a Czech spa resort listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

By 1896, several hundred patients were coming to Amara in search of health and eternal youth. The first hot-bath installation opened at Plantație in 1902, in a wooden shack with a few tubs. Seceleanu then added several rudimentary huts and tents, laying the foundations for the resort that would later be remembered for both luxury and mass treatment.

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It has a slightly sweet, slightly salty taste, bitter in places.