The only marine dunes left on the Romanian coast, protected since 1939 in the grounds of the Agigea Marine Biological Station: rare sand plants, tortoises and a free themed trail.
The ruins of the Greek city from which Mangalia grew: the circuit wall with its towers and the Syrian-type basilica on the clifftop promenade, steps from the beach, plus the town's archaeology museum.
Constanța's old town, on the site of ancient Tomis: Ovid Square, the Roman mosaic, the mosque and its minaret, the cathedral, the Genoese Lighthouse and the casino seafront, all a few steps apart.
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.
Two neighbouring resorts north of Mangalia: Jupiter, its beach split by groynes into small bays, and Cap Aurora, with stepped hotels named after precious stones.
The freshwater lake behind Mamaia, 7.5 km long, with water sports bases on the resort side and little Ovidiu Island, tied to the legend of the Roman poet, off the town of Ovidiu.
The town's own beach, running from the marina breakwater towards Saturn below the promenade rebuilt in 2022; since autumn 2026 it is being widened with sand, behind four new breakwaters.
A 98-hectare former lagoon between Saturn and Venus, with reed beds, open water and sulphur springs where swans, egrets and black-winged stilts stop over; you watch it from the surrounding roads.
The resort that runs straight into Mangalia from the north: 1970s tower hotels, a beach in the middle of being widened, a public spa sanatorium and, behind it all, the Mlaștina Hergheliei nature reserve.
A narrow strip of sand below a high earth cliff covered in scrub, next to the oldest working lighthouse on the Romanian coast, with clear, turquoise-green water.
A resort on the southern coast, three kilometres north of Mangalia: a recently widened beach, bays closed off by breakwaters, hotels with women's names set around a lake and sulphurous waters used for treatment.