Băile Felix, eight kilometres south of the centre, is the obvious half-day excursion: a thermal spa resort with year-round geothermal pools and the only place in the world where the protected water lily Nymphaea lotus thermalis still grows wild. A frequent local bus runs from Oradea's main bus station and the journey takes twenty minutes.
For something further afield, the Apuseni Mountains rise an hour southeast of the city and contain some of the most impressive cave systems in Romania — Peștera Urșilor (the Bears' Cave) at Chișcău, with its preserved Pleistocene cave-bear skeletons, is the standout. The drive to Stâna de Vale, a small mountain resort at 1,100 metres, takes about ninety minutes and gets you into beech and fir forest. The historic Hungarian town of Debrecen is reachable in under two hours across the border, a useful onward stop if you're continuing west.