Day 59 - Ferry to Sulina

Today I abandoned my bike.

The city of Tulcea sits on the west side of the Danube delta. From here the canalised Sulina branch of the Danube cuts through the delta in a gently curving line for nearly 50 miles to reach its namesake town and the Black Sea. My plan for today was to take a ferry to Sulina where the 'end' of the Danube is located, stay overnight and return tomorrow morning.

I had until early afternoon before I departed Tulcea so I filled the first part of the morning visiting the Danube delta museum, a small affair giving information on the natural history of the delta and the traditional lives of those there. I lunched on fish (I thought it might be appropriate) and then I caught the ferry from the harbour side for the three hour trip down river. 

The ferry was actually a small catamaran affair that chugged its way down the narrow river, that wide and impressive waterway of only a couple of days ago now emasculated, having split into three main branches to reach the sea. I watched the world flow past from my uncomfortable plastic seat: olive green waters, views of a tree and reed lined bank, and behind them - but rarely glimpsed - the lagoons and marshes and swathes of watery emptiness that make up most of the delta. We stopped three times at small and remote settlements where locals disembarked with goods and packages from the city and a few travellers disembarked with their rucksacks, short breaks in an otherwise long and unvarying three hour journey.

Sulina is the end of the line, the most eastern town in Romania and also in the EU. It is not that big, although larger than I expected, and has that riverside feel about it with its quiet waterfront street strung along one side of the river with a few restaurants, bars and small tourist boats and water taxis tied up on the long, tree-lined quayside. There is also a feel of the laid-back Caribbean with dusty back streets and faded, weathered buildings but with an added sprinkling of Soviet. And like all the places I have seen in Romania there are a number of once beautiful buildings in serious need of renovation. It all seems like a quiet backwater on a narrow river until a large merchant ship goes past, taking up most of the channel and filling your view, a reminder that this is also a transit route for big shipping.

I came to Sulina to see the 'end' of the Danube and the 'kilometre zero' marker which was there on the opposite bank right across from where the ferry moored: small and insignificant, a hardly visible black zero on a thin pole. In itself it might not seem much for a three hour trip but for me, having followed the Danube on my bike for the last few weeks, it had a sense of completing a journey. I took the opportunity to walk down to an out of town beach a two mile walk away across low, shrubby dunes for my first encounter with the Black Sea: an almost deserted beach of fine sand, dark waters (not black though) a tiny bar and a small forest of straw parasols. I had a beer, watched the few hardy souls who were enjoying pre-season bathing and then headed back to town for a relaxed dinner. Tomorrow at 7am I head back to Tulcea.