Tag Archives: dobrogea

Places

More photos from Dobrogea

Quite a few years ago, I published this gallery of photographs I’d taken in the province of Dobrogea in Romania. I’ve been going through my catalog lately, re-discovering the places I’ve visited and photos I haven’t yet edited, so I thought I’d put together another gallery of photographs for you.

You may know that Dobrogea is thought of as flat place, wide and mostly arrid — great for agriculture — and it certainly is that, but there are some spots in it that can look quite different. Did you know that Dobrogea has mountains and they’re the oldest in Romania (quite possibly some of the oldest in Eastern Europe as well)? They’re so old and worn down by time that they look like hills. You’ll get to see them here, including the biggest one of them, Altantepe.

Enjoy the photos!

A jet airplane shoots past the moon in plain daylight.
Dobrogea, Romania
Dobrogea, Romania
An old mountain in Dobrogea, Romania.
Lichen growing on a hillside rock in the region of Gura Dobrogei, Romania.
Outside the village of Mihail Kogalniceanu, on the road to Constanta. The mountain in the distance is Altantepe. There was a productive gold mine there in the past.
An old, old mountain in Dobrogea, worn down by winds and winters.
A flowering plant from the nettle family, in spring.
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Places

A jaunt into the Danube Delta

Years ago, we took a quick day-trip into the Danube Delta which involved some boating (hence, rowing). It was a fun little trip to the edge of the Delta. It was early spring, so the full beauty of the place wasn’t readily apparent, but that also meant that there were no mosquitoes, which was a huge plus for me. Enjoy the photos!

Ligia stands by a lake, dressed in a black blouse and jeans skirt.
A villa sits on an island in a man-made lake near the Danube Delta, in Dobrogea, Romania.
An oar strikes the water, making a splash. This is a very short exposure, which freezes the splash mid-air.
The convoluted and twisted branches of a tree are set against a bright blue sky.
Reeds waving in the spring breeze.
Herd of goats
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Places

Scenes from Tulcea, night and dawn

We stayed in Tulcea this past spring, at a nice little place called Hotel Select, which happened to have a great view of the city. I set aside the travel fatigue, stayed up late and then woke up early to take photos. Here’s a selection for you.

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Places

Corbu Beach

Corbu is a seaside village in Romania, with a nice, quiet beach where people go to camp and relax, away from the noise and bustle of the country’s popular seaside resorts.

I suppose in Corbu’s case the term “seaside” is somewhat exaggerated. The village is some kilometers away from the sea, so you have to do a bit of driving (or walking) through the open field to get to it, but the trip is worth it.

Corbu is actually on the shores of Lake Corbu, which is part of a network of inland lakes created by silt deposits from the Danube Delta.

The best example of this phenomenon is probably Lake Sinoe, on whose shores you’ll find the ruins of Histria, a once bustling seaside port (inhabited first by Greeks, then by Romans). Histria fell into decay as its access to the sea closed up because of silt deposits.

At any rate, Corbu Beach is a nice place to visit when you want a little bit of peace and quiet. Just know there are no bathrooms and no bars/cafes/restaurants on the beach, so you’ll have to manage on your own.

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Places

Selected photos from Vadu, Romania

The beaches at Vadu and Corbu, two adjoining villages on the shores of the Black Sea in Romania, are some of the last wild (more or less untouched) beaches on the Romanian seaboard.

Vadu has recently been made part of a large natural reservation called Rezervatia Biosferei Delta Dunarii. Nothing has changed as a result of that, except some hefty fees now get levied on every visitor to the beach (20 RON/person/day and 100 RON/car/vacation).

I don’t know where that money goes, and what good, if any, it’s being used for. Perhaps it goes to pad someone’s pockets, as is often the case in Romania. What I do know is the fees are expensive, and the garbage left by some tourists still doesn’t get picked up by the park staff, as you’ll see in pretty much any of the photos shown here if you look carefully. It seems the paramount concern of the park staff is to make sure every person that enters the beach area pays their fee.

The landscape is very flat near Vadu. As far as the eye can see, the fields are wide, flat as a pancake, and the horizon is but a thin line, far, far away. Dobrogea, the province where Vadu is located, is a flat place, it’s true, but it does have gentle rolling hills, gorges and the oldest mountains in Romania (they may look like hills, but they’re mountains). (See my Dobrogea gallery for more photos from the province.)

When we visited Vadu, we didn’t have time to stay and spend a day there, but we did take some time to walk on the beach, and through the barren fields near the beach.

The sunset was beautiful that day.

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