Why this ride
Lakeside sweepers, frequent viewpoints and reliable stop density. It also links naturally to Danube Delta.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Danube Delta Gateway Route
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 61 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 04
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
High passes are seasonal. Verify surface, weather and construction status. Specific flag: heat; insects.
Seasonal context
Apr-Jun; Sep-Oct
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Tulcea
Tulcea is where the land runs out. The town climbs a set of low hills above the southern arm of the Danube, and from the waterfront you look east toward the delta, a world of reeds, channels and lakes that stretches for some seventy kilometres to the Black Sea and has no road through it at all. From here, everything moves by boat: ferries to Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe, fishermen's skiffs, and the small cruisers that take visitors out to see the pelicans. Riders, for once, are the ones who have to stop and look.
Read the complete Tulcea write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tulcea sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Babadag.
2. Babadag
The name is Turkish, and so is much of Babadag's past. Baba means father or holy elder, dağ means mountain, and the town is tied by legend to Sarı Saltuk, a thirteenth-century dervish said to have carried Islam into the Balkans, whose tomb, one of several that claim him, has drawn pilgrims here for centuries. Under the Ottomans this was a garrison town and a seat of local governors, and its stone mosque, built in the early seventeenth century and named after Gazi Ali Pasha, is among the oldest standing in Romania. The minaret still pokes up over the low roofs like a pencil.
Read the complete Babadag write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Babadag comes up 18 km in. Next is Enisala.
3. Enisala
Ride up to the ruined fortress above Enisala late in the day and you will see why somebody chose this hill seven hundred years ago. Below, the vast Razim lagoon stretches toward the Black Sea, the reed beds go copper in the low sun, and the whole of the flat lake country is laid out like a map. The fortress, usually called Heracleea, probably dates from the late thirteenth or fourteenth century, when Genoese and Byzantine traders ran the commerce of the Black Sea; the Ottomans used it later. In those days the water beneath was an open bay of the sea, and ships could sail almost to the foot of the walls before the lagoon silted shut.
Read the complete Enisala write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least 40 km in you reach Enisala. Next is Jurilovca.
4. Jurilovca
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.
Read the complete Jurilovca write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Jurilovca, late in the day.