Blue window frames, onion domes and men in long beards mending nets: Jurilovca looks like a fishing village from old Russia that has floated down to the shore of the Razim lagoon. It is home to Lipovans, Old Believers whose ancestors refused the reforms of the Russian church in the seventeenth century and fled persecution, settling in the Danube delta and northern Dobrogea. They kept their language, their liturgy and their trade, which here has always been fish, and the village still smells faintly of smoke and tar around the harbour.
Two things draw visitors. The first is Gura Portiței, a sandbar between the lagoon and the open sea, reached only by boat from the little port, where a cluster of cabins and a wild beach feel a very long way from anywhere. The second sits on the Doloșman headland just outside the village: the ruins of Argamum, a Greek colony founded in the seventh century BC by settlers from the Aegean, among the oldest towns on the Romanian coast. The walls and foundations lie on a low cliff above the water, with a lighthouse nearby and nothing between you and the far shore but birds.
The run in from Babadag is an easy one along a decent road through farmland that slowly gives way to reed and water. In summer you will share it with cars hurrying to catch the boats. The track out to the headland is a different matter, narrow and partly unpaved, with loose stones and ruts that can be awkward on a heavy bike; take it slowly, or walk the last part. Out here the wind comes straight off the sea and keeps the temperature tolerable even when the inland plains are baking.
Jurilovca has a handful of small shops, guesthouses and places serving Lipovan food, which means smoked and salted fish, fish borscht and pickles, and it is worth sitting down for a plate of it. Do not rely on finding fuel here; fill up in Babadag before the detour. If you take the boat to the sandbar, ask locally about a guarded spot to leave the bike near the port. Evenings on the water are glorious and the mosquitoes agree, so bring repellent.