I stayed only at hotels. I think once we used my husband Dan's tickets, taken from syndicate. We went to Costinesti and stayed in a bungalow where conditions were awful. I said I would never go there again. I didn't like it at all. Most of the times I went there on my own. The same thing happened when my father-in-law arranged to sepend a holiday in predeal or Sinaia durind a certain period. A hotel room was reserved for us. We told the reception staff we came from the part of X?Anyone could stay in a hotel for the prices were low and ate only at restaurants. We also ate at cafeterias which had quite good and cheap food. We went at the restaurant three times a week if we stayed in a hotel. We could afford to eat what we wanted, listened to music, danced a bit, so we had fun. Unfortunately we can no longer do this now. We ate and danced at Casino when we went to the seaside and everything was fine. And took the child with us. (I.H., 30)

People are sadder now than before. Everyone could take a leave then and very few couldn't. After 1980 you could spend seven or eight days at the seaside, then you went to the mountains for two, three or four days. Now no one can afford it.

I spent a holiday in 1982. Someone told me he spent a great holiday in Maramures. I had been there, at Borsa, two years before by a trade-union ticket and I paid around 300 lei for transportation only. But everyhting was fine at a syndicate's chalet. You went to the restaurant in the evening and spent 100 lei for 100 ml of brandy, 100 ml liqueur, two steaks and two bottles of wine "Grasa de Cotnari", 27 lei a bottle. So two bottles were half of the whole bill. The rest of it included food. Then I said to myself I would go once more in the summer. I went to Izvoarele resort in Maramures, in the Dornei Mountains, around 36 kilometres from Baia Mare. In fact that was a miners' recovery resort. To make more money, OJT (Tourism County Organization) Maramures made it part of tourist attractions: everyone was free to come. We only stayed five days! I won't mention a word about food: a quarter of a loaf of bread, a hot chilly and chicken "pate de fois", no matter you were a child or an adult! All cost 40 lei a day or something. You can imagine! (S.C., 110)

You got the holiday tickets from your factory trade-union. They gave you only half, the other one being used by another colleague. There were two-person tickets, but each one paid for his or her share. They were for each of the two and the two colleagues came to the resort separately, they pretended not to know each other.

Family tickets could be obtained by very influential people. They were given to two-person families for a full price. You could have taken anyone with you if you had got it or could have given it to other two persons.

Once you got the ticket you had to go to a check-up at the factory you worked in or elsewhere. You came to the resort with the check-up results. There you were examined and distributed according to your disease: rheumatic mud baths, stomatology, lung radioscopy or pools.

Your schedule were settled by doctors for the whole preiod. Usually three times a day. You finished the treatment until 3 o'clock p.m. and then you had some leisure time. Mud or herbal baths were done in tubs.