Spa hotels in Moldova
1 destination
Moldova's great underground experience has nothing to do with thermal water. It is wine. Limestone galleries beneath the countryside hold collections so large that roads run through them, turning a trip outside Chișinău into something between a cellar visit and an underground expedition.
The most famous example is Mileștii Mici. Around 55 kilometres of its roughly 200-kilometre tunnel network are currently used for wine production and storage, including a collection of more than two million bottles. Guinness World Records recognised it when the collection was smaller, at around 1.5 million bottles, and it has continued to grow. Cricova, another vast underground winery close to the capital, makes the scale of Moldova's wine culture hard to dismiss as a novelty. Chișinău works well as the counterpoint. It is a green, relatively low-rise capital of parks, broad boulevards, restaurants and increasingly confident wine bars. A spa hotel here is best understood as a comfortable base: taste underground during the day, return above ground for a treatment, dinner and sleep.
Late spring through early autumn brings warm weather for exploring the countryside, while the wine harvest gives September and early October particular energy. Moldova's National Wine Day is traditionally celebrated in early October. For winery planning, Moldova Travel's wine guide is considerably more useful than a generic list of spa treatments.