The Black Sea

Heading South trying to follow the coast or the inland lakes was very nice, had coffee overlooking a reed beds & out to the lake with lots of Cormorants, in Summer this area also has many Pelicans but they have now all gone. 

Eventually though all this natural environment disappears as you get closer to Constanta which has spread along the coast & is full of continual tourist development though at this time of year without the tourists. 

In Constanta itself suddenly there was a mass of traffic on wide highways & we quickly fled hoping to find some nicer coastline again. Below Constanta most places on the coast are on roads that only go down to the coast and do not link up along the coast with each other very much. There was the very strange area of Neptun-Olimp, pre-revolution elite Communist party resorts which at this time of year were completely deserted apart from a few loose dogs & the odd security guard. If you ever want to make deserted tourist complex, after an apocalpse, movie this is the place if you come in November. Luckily just further South Mangalia is more of a working town, there is a bit of beach not built on and a new smart marina. There was a large marked out parking area at one end of the beach where there was the only Motorhome we have seen anywhere for more than 2 weeks, but no sign of anyone in it & no other vehicles. 

As we drove in a security guard popped out of a small cabin and we asked/gestured if it was ok to park/sleep the night. He seemed ok about it & we also had 5 dogs to protect us as well! The whole area was floodlight all night but we couldn't work out what he was guarding. Even better we had good internet access from some local hotel which we couldn't even see. The change of shift guard in the morning seemed to want us to leave quickly in the morning so we moved further down on the firm sand closer to the beach for our breakfast. Soon after we were at the eerily empty Bulgarian border & our 5^th new country on this trip.