The plan for our journey was simple: get to the Danube Delta and then south along the coast. Swim in the sea, enjoy the beaches, maybe even sunbathe. We just miscalculated the season a bit. In November it's already pretty cold here, and if the sun happened to want to shine more, the cold wind from the sea would ruin it. But first we took a small stop in Macinului mountain range national park...

We woke up to a foggy morning when you couldn't even see the first peak. It kind of ruined our nice expectations because the evening before, the mountains looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, it improved during the morning, so I decided to go for a run. There was supposed to be a trail about 8 km long through the mountains, so I thought that was just the right distance after a long time without running. At the beginning it was just uphill, which really didn't let me run much, and on top of that I lost the trail. When I jogged to the first peak, I was seriously considering whether to just run back down. But it would be a shame, the views were really amazing, so I ran the whole thing. The next day literally my entire body hurt, but it was worth it! (the mountains are in the header photo)

From the national park we moved even further east and spent the night about halfway to the delta. The next day we planned to drive through it somehow. Yeah, but how do you want to drive through a river by car? They don't have many bridges here, here you only get around by boat. We at least drove as close as we could. And maybe the rest next time... on that boat! ...or how new items get added to the bucket list.

We continued south to a peninsula near the city of Jurilovca, where we wanted to spend the weekend at its easternmost tip near the ruins of Argamum fortress. We made progress on work on the van and at sunset we went to look at the ruins. Saturday evening we then spent outside in front of the van with a cup of Tokaj wine and a view of Lake Razim, toasting to our freedom, thanks to which we can even travel like this!

We were there alone almost the whole time... except for Sunday morning, when a local family moved into our metaphorical living room and was fishing there. We wanted to drive to the sea that day and maybe stay parked somewhere on the beach. We looked at various websites and found out that most of the wild beaches fall under the management of the Danube Delta National Park and that you have to pay for them. If we understood correctly, you pay for camping and not for entry. We wanted to pay for it so we could sleep there with a clear conscience, but it didn't work online and on-site, given our off-season visit, there was no one there at all anymore. So we just drove through and didn't stay for the night. Too bad they don't at least have a vending machine somewhere! Or a money box! :D

We felt sorry that near the southernmost of those wild beaches there was a huge oil refinery. It also had a beach nearby, that one was probably not charged, but there was so much security everywhere around that we didn't want to stay there.

We drove a little further south close to the city of Constanta and stopped at a parking lot between half-built hotels right next to the beach. We didn't even expect it, but the night was pretty quiet and in the morning we even found a water tap by the promenade along the beach, so we could refill water in the van too. That day we stopped at a local laundromat in the city center and washed pretty much everything. They even had super fast internet! :)

This might not be news for a lot of you, and we maybe learned about it in school, but people also come to Romania quite a bit for therapeutic vacations at thermal spas. I just found that out, except the problem was that most of the springs are back behind the mountains. And we're not planning to go back there. But we found one little spot more inland near the town of Harsova, where they have access to a sulfur spring for free and you can bathe in an outdoor concrete tub there. Wouldn't you go for a bath? You just have to plug your nose, because it really stinks! :D

And where are we heading now? It's starting to get cold even in Romania, so further south! Bulgaria, here we comeeeee! :D