After leaving Turkey, we headed north along the Black Sea coast and quickly made a first observation: the Black Sea isn’t black!!
So why is it called the Black Sea? There seem to be several hypotheses. One of them is that for the Turks, each cardinal point was associated with a color, and black represented the north. Since the sea is indeed located to the north of Turkey geographically, that explanation works fine for us, sold 👍.
So we followed the coast toward the black/north, crossing Bulgaria fairly quickly. Not that there’s nothing to see there, but since it’s impossible to go everywhere, we chose to focus more on Romania. Shortly after crossing the border shortly after noon, we stopped to eat and had a feeling there was a good restaurant nearby. How did we know? By seeing families getting out of their cars with Granny and Grandpa. Some signs never lie, if you take your elderly parents out, surely it's in a good place 😂. And we were absolutely not disappointed by this HUGE restaurant located right on the beach with its fish specialties. Our best restaurant meal so far 😋. There's something to make us happy 😀.
Needless to say we didn’t drive much that afternoon… But we made up for it the next day, as we had a clear goal in mind: reaching the Danube Delta. The Danube, which takes its source in Germany (not that far from the French border), and ends its journey in the Black Sea in northern Romania after crossing 10 European countries… And you know what? The Danube isn’t blue either 😲.
Especially at the delta, where the river splits into three main branches, forming a labyrinth of canals, lakes, floating islands, and reed beds, covering an area of about 4,300 km². The best way to explore this vast biosphere reserve, now protected, is by boat. Georgian (I’m not sure that’s how he spells his name), a fisherman on the delta, agreed to take us out in his boat to discover a very, very small part of this huge territory.
It is obviously a place with incredibly rich wildlife and plant life, especially birds. Unfortunately, we were a bit too early in the season to see many of them, as most migratory birds are still sunbathing in the south. But we were lucky enough to see a pelican. A solitary bird…
For more than two hours, we wandered through this aquatic labyrinth with Georgian, listening to him talk about life on the delta. Two peaceful hours under a beautiful sun, with that feeling that spring is not so far away anymore.
After this wonderful nature stop, we took the sunshine with us and headed west toward central Romania and Transylvania. Dracula, does that ring a bell?? Well, here is his castle:
Which is actually called Bran Castle and isn’t really scary. Another illusion shattered!! Dracula is a character who only existed in the imagination of his creator, author Bram Stoker, who may have been inspired for his novel by Bran Castle, as well as by Romanian folklore rich in legends, and by the reputation of one of Transylvania’s medieval princes, Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler because of the fate he reserved for anyone who betrayed him… lovely chap 😨.
Bloody reputation aside, Transylvania is a very beautiful region to explore. Bordered by the Carpathian Mountains, we were quite happy to see snowy peaks again, reminding us of home,
and to discover the lovely towns and villages of the region, which was colonized by the Saxons, German settlers who arrived from the 12th century onward and remained until the 1970s–1980s, when most of them left under the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. And this long Saxon influence is very much visible in the architecture, as in Brașov,
as well as in Sibiu, our favorite so far 😍.
The weather has been on our side, which obviously helps us enjoying it all fully 🌞. And on Romanian roads, we see many things that are a bit unusual for us, like people who still travel by horse…
And it’s far from being an isolated case. We really see them all the time, and there are enough of them on the road for the traffic signs to be adapted 😅.
With fuel prices skyrocketing these days, it makes you wonder who is actually more in with the time…
Another Romanian feature worth mentioning is the brown bear. The country has the largest population of bears in Europe, estimated between 6,000 and 8,000 individuals. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any as they are still sleeping peacefully waiting for spring… But once again, the road signs warning about possible bears are sometimes a bit unusual. This sign telling people not to feed bears pizza made us smile 😂.
We are continuing on with our exploration of Transylvania and Romania. Next time, we’ll be able to tell you whether the bears have come out of hibernation and ordered a pizza 😄.
Jérôme et Sophie
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