Romanian Côte d'Azur

Hello all!

The title of this post doesn’t perfectly cover reality. I mean, the Black Sea’s coast shouldn’t ever be compared with the French Riviera. Anyway, this title symbolizes in a funny way that Romania can keep calm due to the fact that it has its own seaside, beach and summer resorts. It’s like a small Miami in Romania. Or not?

Romanians general mentality is not conscious about how many treasures are hidden in the country (geographically). I’ve written about the main attractions of Romania in one of my previous posts where I presented great attractions for tourists. Sadly, Romanians don’t invest in the country’s tourism as much as it would be optimal. People prefer to spend their holidays abroad, leaving the country and searching for relief elsewhere in the world. Even if the country has its own coast, citizens travel thousand of kilometres to swim in another sea. This is not a problem itself, but without investing and developing local tourism, everything can after a time become valueless and unimportant. If local people don’t take advantage of the opportunities hidden in national tourism, then Romania won’t ever be a challenging destination for tourists. In this post I’m presenting the Black Sea and one of its most famous summer resorts: Costinesti.

Comparing with other summer resorts, Costinesti is the buzziest, the most modern and the most lively. It has a colourful night-life and is 100% student-oriented. If you choose to travel by train to Costinesti and benefit from student discount, if you reserve a hostel instead a 5 star hotel and lower a bit your expectations among accommodation, then Costinesti is going to fulfill your dreams. The beach is great, big and clean enough, the water quality is perfect, the weather is ideal, seagulls are cute, the general atmosphere is crazy (in a positive way), prices are fair (if you are attentive and don’t waste money on little useless things), so it’s actually a ‘job well-done’. I won’t say that Costinesti is the most special summer resort in the world. I wouldn’t even say that its strength is the sea and the beach itself. But it has something catchy though, it spreads a feeling of freedom, negligence, hedonism and YOLO. Experiencing Costinesti during university years is a good option, but I won’t recommend it to families, children or older people. For these group of people other resorts, like Eforie Nord, Neptun and Constanta are more suitable.

The journey from Cluj-Napoca to Costinesti lasts 12 hours. It’s a long and exhausting trip. The route passes by the Eastern-Carpathian and Subcarpathian Mountains, drawing near Bucharest, and in the end it goes several kilometres right parallel with the beach. It’s so cool watching the waves from the windows of a train!

Costinesti is a plain territory, with lot of guest-houses, apartments and camping opportunities. It’s a lovely and lively resort with clubs, restaurants, street-food and bazaars. People here are mostly Romanian-speakers, understanding English is not one of the best capacity of the hosts. Nevertheless, people are very friendly and open-minded, helpful and entertaining. Romania is typically that nation which knows how to celebrate in bad circumstances, and the hospitality of people doesn’t really depend on their material background.

Why is Costinesti so student-oriented? Because there are live concerts every night. There are both open-air and club-concerts, silent parties and thematical parties. There’s an adventure park, amusement park, and water amusement park. Food and beverages are cheap. I would warmly recommend trying fresh fish meals, or if you prefer an easy-snack, then crunchy fried anchovies and French fries are the best match. Traditional Romanian soups: Ciorba de burta (tripe soup), ciorba taraneasca or ciorba ardeleneasca are also delicious choices. Ciorba is actually a soup with vegetables and meat-cubes. Its particularity hides in dill, lot of sour cream and tarragon. After eating, sport is next. During the day visitors can practice team-sports like beach-volleyball, teqball, table-tennis and football, or experience extreme sports like water-ski, jet-ski. I was taken a round with the inflatable banana. This banana is linked to a boat. The boat is very fast, it goes with 60-70 km/h, and remaining sat on the without falling down of it is almost impossible. In the end we all fell into the water.

I hope I made you think about visiting Costinesti. This spectacular view is waiting for you. This deserted ship is the mysterious trademark of Costinesti.

P. S. Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I'm not a professional photographer.

Thanks for reading. Dora.

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