Bucharest and Black Sea Beaches

Monday 9^th of July



Long time since last posted anything. Been lazy... to write and also in everything else in life. That's right, I finally reached the Black Sea beaches! But let's go back a little bit first.



Last Wednesday I left Transylvania in order to meet Mika in Bucharest. I hitchhiked from Sibiu, which turned out to be quite easy. Hitchhiking is actually a little misleading term, because it's a bit different in these countries. It's a way of transportation basically. People who need to go somewhere stand on the side of the road, and people who have a car and have space in their car stop and ask the people waiting where they need to go. If they are going to the same directions, people hop in and after the trip they normally give the driver some gas money. It's not mandatory every time, but normally people do it. So that's how I got to Bucharest. Also for example when I was in Lviv, living in Peter's place, one night we were returning home so late there were no buses going anymore, so we just waited on the bus stop for a few minutes, and then someone was driving to the same direction and offered us a ride. Nice and easy.



In Bucharest I met Mika in X-Hostel, where we had a reservation. Mika had arrived earlier, but I found him from the hostel. So from this point on we'll travel together to Istanbul. Mika is an old friend of mine, we've known each other since high school. Never travelled together though, but I know it's gonna be awesome!



I had mostly heard negative stories from Bucharest, so I didn't expect much from the city. And it wasn't my favourite, the contrast was especially big after Transylvania, but still the city is not so bad. It has an old and vivid old town and lots of interesting architecture. The old town in the evening was maybe even too hectic for an old town though. But it's a very big city, and the temperature was near to 40 degrees, so I think we didn't see even close everything even though we did our best to walk around the city. On Thursday night we attended to a pub crawl organized by our hostel which was a great way to see the city from another point of view...

Mika in Bucharest old town.

Professional intrest towards the outdoor gym... didn't last for very long in  close to +40 temperature.

On Friday we took a train to Constanta (and to Black Sea baeches!), and from the station we found an old aunt who had a place for us to stay. It was located inbetween Constanta and Mamaia, very close to the beaches. The room itself was a small, old and incredibly hot, but it was also cheap so we were satisfied. To get to the room we had to walk through piles of old tires, careful not to step on cats on the way. The doors also had no locks, but we still have all our stuff safe...



On Saturday the first thing we did was to go to the beach. After two hours we both started to feel our skin colour changing, so we decided to move on. Nothing serious though, not like in Cambodia on January... After improving our chances to get a skin cancer we started walking towards the old town of Constanta. After a short walked I spotted two familiar figures from the beach, it was the Finnish girls I've met in Sibiu. They were doing the same thing as we were, enjoying the sun. In the old town we climbed on top of a Mahmudiye mosque to get some views. Nothing spectacular, but still ok. After that we went to see Mamaia, which had very crowded beaches and a lot of activities for tourists, including a water park and an amusement park.

Constanta beaches

P-kiosk... ;)

On Sunday it was time to move on, heading south and close to the Bulgarian border, a small place called Vama Veche. This has been our base since yesterday, and tomorrow we'll continue to Bulgaria. Vama Veche is a small village which used to be a haven for hippies and other ”artistic souls”. Nowadays it's more popular among ”normal” tourists as well. On Sunday it was packed with sunbathers but now on Monday there's much more space. We're living in a hostel in the middle of the village. But it really is a very small place, so it actually takes like ten minutes to walk from one end to the other end. Now we have already tried almost every restaurants there exists in here. So tomorrow is a good day to move on. Today we did try a local speciality, a half cantaloupe melon filled with pancakes, chocolate sauce, nuts and honey. Not bad... Time goes by in here mainly by lying on the beach, swimming and eating. And then doing it again, in different order. And again. And again. In other words, relaxing...

Vama Veche

So tomorrow our destination is Varna. Let's see how easy it is to get there from here.