Gura Portiței

About Gura Portiței

Gura Portiței is a strip of sand a few dozen metres wide, caught between the Black Sea and Lake Golovița, in the southern part of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. No road reaches it: the car stays in Jurilovca, and the rest is a crossing of some 20 minutes by boat, over the lake.

The name comes from the portița, the "little gate" through which Golovița once opened into the sea. Hydraulic works in the 1970s closed it, and the lake was left with no outlet, its water growing steadily less salty. Far earlier, the whole Razim–Sinoe lagoon complex was an open gulf of the Black Sea, sailed by ships travelling between the Greek cities of Argamum and Histria. Lipovan fishermen settled seasonally on the sand strip, with reed huts and a fish-processing station.

Today the place holds a single resort and the beach around it. The sand is fine and full of shells at the water's edge, and a few hundred metres beyond the reed sunshades the beach is all but empty. From the same strip you can watch, on the same day, the sun rise over the sea and set over the reed beds of the lake.

Good to know before you go

Getting there

By car: you drive as far as Jurilovca and no further. From Bucharest it is about 3 hours, on the A2 and then north on the DN22 through Babadag, from where the DJ222 runs ~26 km down to the village. Tulcea is ~60 km away, Constanța ~100 km, and Iași about 5 hours. In Jurilovca you leave the car in the resort's car park, where the boat departs.

Public transport: minibuses run from Tulcea to Jurilovca, with only a few services a day; from Constanța you change at Babadag. Beyond that there is no transport other than the boat.

Where to park

The resort's private car park at the Jurilovca landing stage: 120 spaces, free and monitored by CCTV. The reception where the boat transfer is paid for is on the same site. In high season it is worth arriving 15–20 minutes before the boat leaves.

Fees & discounts

The beach is free; what you pay for is the boat and the reserve access permit. The transfer run by the resort costs 50 lei per person each way and is paid at the reception in the Jurilovca car park, with no booking. Private boats cross from the port around the clock, but after 18:00 the fares rise sharply because of night navigation. The visitor access permit for the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, bought online at ddbra.ro or from the reserve's ticket machines, costs 5 lei for one day, 15 lei for seven days and 30 lei until the end of the year; it is free for pupils, students, pensioners, people with disabilities and residents of the reserve and the neighbouring communes. If you come in your own boat, the boat permit is 20 lei for seven days. Loungers and the swimming pool are included only for guests staying at the resort.

Rules

You need an ARBDD visitor access permit, valid for the whole of your stay. Open fire is banned along the whole strip: gas bottles, hotplates, cookers and barbecues may not be brought in or used, because the reeds and dry vegetation catch light easily. Perishable food may not be brought in, and rubbish goes only in the bins provided. When boarding, the landing-stage staff decide how passengers are assigned to the boats, and the crew's instructions must be followed. On the beach, a blue flag means good conditions, yellow means take care and red means no swimming; do not swim beyond the buoys. Pets must be kept on a lead. Commercial photography and filming inside the reserve need an ARBDD permit costing 100 lei, and flying a small drone one costing 50 lei.

Facilities

Restaurant serving Lipovan fish cooking · beach bar · swimming pool and loungers, for resort guests only · playground and sports pitch · rooms, apartments and reed-thatched bungalows · heliport for private flights · outside the resort there are no roads, car parks or shops