One corner in Romania that we have not seen is the Danube Delta. The Danube is the longest river in the EU and flows through 10 countries before draining into the Black Sea, Germany, Austria, Slovania, Hungrary, Croatia,Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldovia, and the Ukraine. Located approximately 300 km north east of Bucharest the Danube Delta is an easy days ride on the bike.
Getting to the delta involved first getting out of Bucharest, which can be be a feat in itself. Along the way we had to cross two arms of the Danube by ferry and at last found ourselves on a small dirt road that took us into Partizani, our final destination and the spot where we would take our tour of the delta (a very small part of the delta). We spent 3 days at Eurocamping a nice place to base ourselves as we waited to take our tour, a pool, table tennis, and a fantastic vantage point of the river, always busy with ships and life as the locals know it on the water...what more could you ask for. Breakfast was included in our room and we had fresh fish for dinner early night, catfish...and I can tell you the locals are very proud of their catfish, and small portions we got were tasty.
Life on the river in Partizani is like the life that time forgot. Fishermen are on the water everyday in their small rowboats and the fields behind the town are harvested by hand or with a horse and wagon. The odd little store or bar can be found only by looking hard along the road as many are located through a side door of a house.
The tour we took into the delta was on a pontoon boat with 7 other Romanian tourists. We spent four hours travelling down river to Maliuc, up into one of the small channels to a lake/marsh where many birds where nesting and then continued on up another channel that came out very near our room. The unique biosphere in the delta supports over 300 species of birds and 45 types of fish.
I would say our trip to the Danube Delta was a success and very informative.
The first of 2 ferries we took on our way to the Danube Delta, first ones on!
The second ferry was actually a barge which was guided across the channel by a old boat, (looked like something left behind from WW2).
Our cute little cabin at Eurocamping.
A typical house front in Partizani.
Fields out back the one street of Partizani that runs along side the river.
Lots of stocks had nests on the power lines in town. At times you would hear them squawking or clacking their beaks.
Like I said, I love the small houses, even if some are starting to get run down. In places mud and straw lay in piles where there was once a house years ago.
This old was put it rest a while ago. What make it was, we have no idea.
There were few cars parked out front of the homes, instead we saw boats, old and new.
The main dock in town, the place where people who lived across the river on farms and other small villages left their cars and paddled across.
The sunset over the Danube as a freighter makes its way upriver to be filled.
The Danube from its beginnings in Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest, Germany to Sulina, Romania.
The small roads joining villages are much easier traveled by bike than car. We took a short ride one afternoon but there are not many roads along the river.
White Pelicans and comerants in Lucin Furtuna.
The White Pelicans here are a little different than the ones we see in BC.
There were a lot of them.
White swans, gulls, and...
Egrets amongst the lily pads.
This little bird was not too happy to have us near her nest.
And millions of bright green frogs of all sizes.
An odd house made from an old container of some sort.
Now that is a load!
A fisherman sorts through his catch, dividing the different type of fish into crates.
Many of the fishing boats look the same, dark brown/black, wide with a tall bow.
The water in the bay was a little murky, but a lot of silt comes down the Danube and is deposited here.
At sunset, everything looks a little different, calmer and a little more picturesque.
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