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Published: September 20th 2009
Just 90 minutes away from Tulcea lies the small town of Sulina. 90 minutes by fast hydrofoil down one of the Danube’s many arms, , double that if you take a slow boat. The scenery isn’t that much to write home about though so we recommend speed!
In Sulina we were met from the boat by a guy offering us a room in a
pension just 5 minutes walk from the jetty and, apparently 8 minutes walk from the beach. Something was lost in translation though as it took 15-20 minutes to get there and later we discovered it was a good half an hour to the beach! Maybe he meant by car, which seems a bit bizarre as there are few roads and fewer vehicles around!!
We decided to take a room because it was nice and seemed a good price. It doesn’t have a name though which is odd. Dan and Daniela have been wonderful hosts though and you can call them on 0745 250 286 if you decide to come to Sulina. The major difficulty is the lack of a common language so we have had to resort to pidgin English and a combination of as
many Latin languages we can remember. At times it works! For example,
no function is very similar to the Romanian for
it doesn’t work which led to a demonstration of how to lock our door!! We were up for a pre-arranged breakfast on our first morning but by 0845 there was no sign of life so we went out to buy our own stuff. At 0930 we were munching away in our room when there was a knock on the door - breakfast was ready! So we had to eat what we could to be polite (and we were paying for it!) and were presented with eggs, bread and jam, chocolate croissants and fruit turnovers. The fresh hot milk was a challenge as neither of us are big milk drinkers and straight from the cow to the pan wasn’t really our cup of tea. In fact a cup of coffee would have been much more our cup of tea if you get my drift!!
We arrived at lunchtime so after a salad in the
Jean Bart restaurant which became our “local” we had a wander around the riverside area of town. The pedestrianised boulevard alongside the river is pleasant
Our Pension
No name and you wouldn't even know they had rooms to let. Very nice though!to walk along and see the local life. There are always lots of people fishing wherever you go and occasionally you see someone land their catch. The Cathedral is nice too. Nearby you can see the old lighthouse, now seriously inland - the coast has moved! - and visit the museum inside. We didn’t but our hosts went on about it so much it must be worth seeing!!
It was a beautiful afternoon and the sun was shining so we headed to the beach. On the way we stopped off at the graveyard where there is a small collection of British graves from the late 1800s. It was really interesting to wander around and see how tragedy struck so far from home.
On our way to the beach we picked up our usual collection of stray dogs. They were cute and friendly, but a pain when they started fighting amongst themselves! They followed us all the way to the beach and all the way back to town afterwards. At the beach we relaxed for a while but we didn’t get around to sunbathing, nor did we swim in the Black Sea. Some people did but we preferred just
to chill!
In the evening we expected a bit more vibrant nightlife considering it was the weekend. Instead it was all a bit low key and quiet, perhaps because it’s now low season. We did find some nice
crap to eat. Look at the picture from the menu, it’s true, we were eating crap! The Irish Pub didn’t open its doors until after 9pm and when we got around to going in the heavy metal music got a bit too much to stay beyond one beer! So, the
Jean Bart wins!!
Day 2 was a beautiful day ruined by fearsome winds. We had planned to do a boat trip out into the bay to see the pelicans but our boatman said they wouldn’t be easy to see in the wind. Instead we took a small boat across the river and did a bit of exploring. It was a bit strange over there as it seems to be full of rusting old ships and derelict buildings. It appears to have been a shipyard in a previous life but now it has a melancholic air to it as you wander around. Whether or not one is supposed to wander around
is probably another matter! Amongst the ruins was one building almost fully intact with a very secure fence surrounding it and two very military looking trucks inside. Wonder what they were!! We walked as far as we could without falling in the river and saw a lot of birds - seagulls, egrets, grebes, terns, swans and crows - but nothing special and definitely no pelicans. We did get a glimpse of the bay we wanted to sail around and it was very rough indeed.
On Day 3 we discovered to our horror that to travel back to Tulcea on a Sunday requires a little more planning then we had done. Every boat, fast or slow, was full! We were therefore stranded for an extra day. Again the weather was nice but a chill wind was blowing ruling out lying on the beach. We walked out that way anyway and set out to explore what we thought were some old military bunkers. After climbing them we had no idea what they were except maybe that they were training ramps for tank drivers. Any other suggestions? We then tried to walk around towards the beach via the riverbank. That proved interesting
but impossible and in the end we were chased away from some abandoned houses by a formidable German Shepherd dog. Fortunately we ran fast enough for him to lose interest in us. Phew!
Getting lost in the sandbanks would be quite easy and we never did manage to find the right track to the beach. Rather than risk walking round in circles for hours we retraced our steps to the “bunkers” and followed the road to the beach. This time it was deserted. We sat and amused ourselves by watching the wild but friendly dogs work together to stop cows wandering onto their territory - the beach!
It’s been fun but it’s time to move on now. Sulina is definitely worth a visit and we are not sorry we came. Just be warned, if you want to return to Tulcea on a Sunday, book a long way in advance!!!
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