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.
For the map, the villages and the sights of the Danube Delta, see the Danube Delta guide.
20 results
Top 20Europe's largest wetland, a biosphere reserve and UNESCO site: channels, lakes, reed beds and 365 bird species, from pelicans to egrets; visited by boat from Tulcea.
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 roughly 1,200 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.
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.
A strict nature reserve in the heart of the Danube Delta: oaks more than 400 years old, including the Kneeling Oak, and the highest sand dunes in the delta, on the Caraorman sand bank.
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 town, at the mouth of the Sulina arm, with no road to the rest of the country: a port with an international past, the Old Lighthouse, the European Commission of the Danube palace and the maritime cemetery.
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.
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.
A Lipovan village in the north of the Danube Delta, at the end of the Navrom line on the Chilia arm, next to the Letea forest; a forced-labour colony for prisoners operated here under communism.
A fishing village where the Sfântu Gheorghe arm meets the Black Sea, with no road in: you arrive by water, and the village has its church, the 1967 lighthouse and a 30 km beach 2 km away.
The Danube port town where the ships to the Danube Delta leave from: the waterfront with the River Station, the Independence Monument on the hill, the Azizie Mosque and the aquarium.
Fishing village on the Sulina branch in the middle of the Danube Delta, with no road: a call for the Navrom Delta ship, with an ARBDD information centre and the launches to Mila 23 and Caraorman.
A village on the edge of the Danube Delta, ~38 km from Tulcea, with a harbour on the Sfântu Gheorghe arm, where the boat routes to the southern lakes, Uzlina and Gura Portiței set out.
A village in the north of the Danube Delta, on the bank of the Chilia arm, on the Ukrainian border; reached by the Navrom ship towards Periprava or by road via the Tulcea ferry, and the starting point of a water route to Lake Matița.
Top 20Top 100
