The Danube Delta is the largest and best known, but the deltas of Romania are several: the Danube forms another at Balta Mică a Brăilei, the Neajlov at Comana, south of Bucharest, and Văcărești, an unfinished reservoir in the capital, has become a small urban delta, with birds, foxes and otters. The landscape is the same, on a different scale: channels, reeds, marshes, floating reed islands and willows, and a world of water birds best seen in spring, from a boat, early in the morning. The Danube Delta is entered by boat from Tulcea, Murighiol or Jurilovca; the others are explored on foot or by bicycle.
The Danube Delta, a biosphere reserve and UNESCO site, is visited from its villages, Crișan, Mila 23, Sfântu Gheorghe, or from Gura Portiței, on the sandbar between Lake Razim and the sea. Balta Mică a Brăilei and the Neajlov Delta are day trips from Brăila and Bucharest respectively; the Văcărești Delta can be visited right from the city.
Top 20Europe's largest wetland, a biosphere reserve and UNESCO site: channels, lakes, reed beds and over 300 bird species, from pelicans to egrets; visited by boat from Tulcea.
The roughly 1,100 ha Neajlov marsh in Comana Natural Park, with channels, reed beds and waterbirds, less than an hour from Bucharest; seen by small boat, rowing boat or kayak.
Top 100Romania's first urban nature park: 183 ha of ponds, reed beds and willows inside an abandoned reservoir in southern Bucharest, home to over 180 bird species, otters and foxes, a few hundred metres from the tower blocks.
The last stretch of free-flooding Danube floodplain between Giurgeni and Brăila: seven river islands, 52 lakes and over 200 bird species, reached only by boat.
The wild beach where the Sfântu Gheorghe branch meets the Black Sea: 30 km of fine sand, 2 km from a Delta village that can only be reached by water.
Romania's easternmost beach, where the Sulina branch meets the Black Sea: very fine alluvial sand, an unusually wide strip and water that stays shallow for tens of metres.
A strip of sand between the Black Sea and Lake Golovița, in the Danube Delta, reached only by boat from Jurilovca: a wide beach with reed sunshades and a single resort.
Romania's largest lake, a lagoon of about 415 km² south of the Danube Delta, with Lipovan fishing villages on its shores, protected islands and the ruins of Enisala and Argamum above the water.
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