My SeFeGeH

One thing is for sure: Sfântu Gheorghe remains a place like no other on the map of Romania, and among the villages of the Deltă it is probably the most alive. It has many people who love it and it is not afraid to transform itself in order to welcome all those who want to get to know it. It has been doing it for almost ten years before my eyes and, for me, it has not lost its atmosphere and naturalness. It is clear to me that I will be coming back here year after year for a long time to come, so if you haven't already seen this corner of the country, it's worth getting to know it!
Sfântu Gheorghe can only be reached by water, so it's no surprise that any visit here starts on one of the pontoons. Most likely a stable, metal one, which both small dinghies and wide cruising boats can pull from. They don't quite fit in well with the wood and reed decor, but they have appeared out of necessity as the village has grown as a tourist destination. The old ones were almost given up, but they still stand as subjects for tourists' photos and as a testament to the times that have passed over the village.

San Giorgio
Sfântu Gheorghe was first mentioned around 1300 under the Italian name of San Giorgio. However, nothing remains to tell the story of those times, only a dry map by the Genoese Pietro Visconte, kept in the National Library in Vienna. In fact, Sfântu Gheorghe as we know it came into being around 1800, with the arrival of the Lipovans and Ukrainians in the Delta area. The old Pontoons, the reed and wooden houses and traditional boats dissolving into the environment on the side canals, the children's habit of riding bareback and, above all, the alley covered with fine sand are part of the way of life of that time, unchanged until the 70s.
As everywhere, the socialist boom brought both good and bad. The locals fondly remember life back then, when the Delta was full of fish, they could keep what they wanted and the fishermen could keep what they didn't need. It was also then that the Delta started to be promoted as a tourist destination and regular boat trips (several times a week, 4-5 hours from Tulcea) started to connect the area with the rest of the world. Large metal pontoons on floating barrels dotted the Delta, and Sfântu Gheorghe got one too. They're still standing, an ideal trampoline for the village children, but the new boats no longer use them.

Village borders

The best thing left from the 1980s, however, is the jetty that surrounds the village, and all the locals agree. It's the next thing the tourist steps on after stepping off the pontoon, but it's uninspiring and easy to overlook. To us it's just a dusty, slightly elevated road after all, but for a village at an altitude of just 1 meter above sea level it made a huge difference. At last it could be built solidly, because the annual floods that the locals had grown accustomed to were becoming history.
By "sturdy" in those days, some meant 4-storey blocks with "cooperative" shops on the ground floor, a scar that is still visible in the village center, completely out of place in the surrounding scenery. Battered by wind and sand, they show their age and inspire resignation. There will probably be no justification for rebuilding them and the Delta will gradually incorporate them. It has already strategically surrounded them with sand and is looking for crevices through which to seep.
But for the locals, "resilient" meant they could tame the swamps in their backyards, reclaim their land and erect adobe houses, bigger and more comfortable than the traditional ones. And if a few tourists started to come with the boats, with the new buildings they started to feel comfortable and return. Back in the 1990s, for a handful of people, "the most beautiful beach in Romania" meant Sfântu Gheorghe.

The beach

From the center of the village to the beach it's about a 3 km walk, a little more than half an hour. 1 km to the eastern edge of the village, and from there another 2 km through the floodplain to the seashore. A few years ago, there was nothing here. Besides, when I first arrived, it was hard for me to believe that "the most beautiful beach in Romania" is not an exaggeration, and I was convinced of it until I got within 50 meters of it.
Imagine Mamaia's beach, wide, with its fine sand and a domed entrance. That's exactly what I found in Sfântu, but 40 kilometers long, without a sun lounger, umbrella, car or hotel. Occasionally the village supermarket would send a tractor-trailer with ice and soft drinks and beer, but that was all. Just us seagulls and the occasional herd of cows shared the place.
Today, things have changed. You can hire bikes or buy minibus tickets to shorten the journey, umbrellas and sun loungers can be rented at the beach entrance, and a terrace with a generator and fridges stocked with drinks and ice creams has sprung up there too. From some angles, especially at the entrance, it looks like any other of our resorts, but the 40km to Sulina is just as deserted and full of promise. Walk just 20 minutes along the shore and the crowds of tourists disappear into the distance. It remains, for us, by far the most beautiful in the country.

Green village

If in the early 2000s Sfântu had the potential to become a top tourist destination, Green Village is the resort that put it on the map and gave value to that potential. At the same time, it kick-started a series of transformations that woke the village out of its doldrums.
While each resort has its own personality, I'm not a big fan of them. But when I first saw it, this resort at the end of the Delta struck me as something special. I'd never seen anything so well located and integrated into the landscape, and the idea that it was possible to have a luxury villa, but of traditional materials, surrounded by lily lakes, carefully tended and yet on the banks of the biggest channel of the Delta, was something out of a movie. And, to make my surprise complete, across the road, the Green Dolphin campsite, with its open-air cinema, Wi-Fi terrace and all the facilities you need seemed implausible, not just for a place so cut off from the world, but for any other location I'd seen.
In the meantime, my footsteps have taken me to many meridians and various hotels and resorts, but I tell you honestly, Green Village remains in my top 3. I've seen more spectacular and more cozy, just as I've seen some set in more remote and exotic areas, but none that set out to combine the two and succeed with so much charm. Tell me, where else can you sit in an outdoor hot tub next to a lily pond, while on the roof of your villa a family of storks clean their nest with an eye out for the resident hedgehog patrolling his territory? There's a lot to say about this place, but it's worth seeing for yourself. If you want a seaside vacation in a place like you've never seen before, come here to the edge of the Delta and you'll have plenty to talk about!

On the canals

Talking about the sea, the beach and accommodation, I forgot perhaps the most important thing. Sfântu Gheorghe is in the Delta with all that that means: fish dishes, varied and delicious, many and diverse animals and above all canals, water and, of course, mosquitoes. There's nothing missing from the traditional experience and, whatever level of adventure you're up for, there's something to suit your taste. For the nature lover, at least a boat trip is recommended.
To the south of the village, once you cross the canal, the Turkish Gorge opens up and at the end of it is a huge, shallow lagoon where most of our waterfowl species find their home. A boat trip here takes 2-3 hours and is easily booked on the spot. At the same time it's the shortest, and therefore cheapest, option. For first timers I'd say it's not to be missed. Just make sure you catch one of the first boats leaving around 7am, when the activity on the puddle is in full swing!
For lovers of long roads and unpaved paths, a bike is a must. The 40 kilometers to Sulina are not easy to cover - because of the sun and the sandy road in places - but they conceal plantations, small forests, canals and lakes where human presence is still a rarity. Plan carefully, take your GPS and, even then, talk to the villagers before you choose a route because, in the Delta, things change often, depending on the season and the weather!
But the best thing is that you don't have to do any of this to feel in the middle of nature. Just take a spot on the banks of any canal near the village and a whole host of little animals will parade before your eyes as they go about their daily routine.

Good, bad?

I think you can easily realize that this place instantly bewitched me, and that my first St. Vitus holiday was not my last. I returned almost year after year, and each time the boat was busier and the campground fuller. And with the Anonymous film festival moving here, the pace picked up. Summer after summer, for a week at a time, 2,000-3,000 people would literally occupy the village of 600 people, with tents, bivouacs or scattered around the backyards, once all 600 campsite sites filled up.
Thus began the locals' romance with traditional tourism, and signs saying "we organize boat trips" and "traditional fish lunch" poked their heads timidly out of the gates. Nobody minds a little extra money, and both activities proved hugely popular. And if at first it was amusing to locals that their daily meals and the places where they took their little boat trips drew exclamations of amazement and appreciation, it slowly became serious business. After the fall into disrepair of the cherhanale and the introduction of restrictions on sturgeon fishing, they became an important source of income.
As the years passed, the transformations gathered even more momentum. Guesthouses and services began springing up on every corner, and traditional, adobe houses began to give way to larger, tin-roofed, BCA brick ones. The fishermen's inn in the center is now the "La Sălcii" terrace, with impeccable service and LCD TVs. The alleyway is filling up with people, and the cars transporting them to the beach occasionally create little traffic jams in a village that a few years ago had only one motorized vehicle - an Oltcit brought in somehow, which can't justify the cost of returning to civilization.
Good or bad? The debate is still open. There are many plans - there is talk of paving the main street to eliminate the dust kicked up by minibuses, modifying the harbor for the ever more numerous and faster boats, a new cherhana and expanding the network of optional excursions to previously almost inaccessible reserves in the Delta. At the same time, tourism organization and perhaps even building standards are being put in place, as well as wider greening of the area and a reawakening of the reed-roof art that has almost been lost. What of all these plans will actually come to fruition and how they will affect the area, only the future can tell.

Spring

It was a pleasant summer's day, 29 degrees and sunny in Murighiol when I boarded the boat. I sat comfortably, camera handy, for an hour of the smooth and pleasant ride as I knew it from summers past. 10 minutes later I was freezing cold, even though I had unpacked all my luggage on the floor of the boat and armored myself with a jacket, glasses and gloves. As the boat bounced from wave to wave and the wind forced its way through the tiniest openings in the tightly packed clothes I asked myself for the first time, what am I doing in the Delta at this time of year? The question I heard before I left, punctuated rhetorically with arguments along the lines of "it's too cold to sunbathe", "you can see the wind is blowing badly", "everything is flooded" and "there's no one there". If the last two served as my motivation, in fact, they all led to the interlocutors' final conclusion: "there's nothing to do in the Delta at the end of April".
"Sfântu" welcomed me quietly under a gloomy sky. The lanes were deserted, there were more lizards than people on the pier, and only a fishing boat occasionally disturbed the peace when it showed up at the door of the cheranal with its own flock of noisy gulls. Because, although April is prohibition month - it lasts until June 15 - it's free for the scrumbie, and at St. John's there is plenty of it. I'd tasted them in previous years, but I wasn't impressed. This spring was a different story. A fish native to the Black Sea, where it lives in large shoals, the scrumbia enter the riverbeds to spawn in April. This is when it is fresh, fat and tasty, the rest of the year it is usually eaten smoked or salted from the spring catch. It's not worth the effort to look for shoals in the sea, especially at times of year when other more prized species can be caught closer to home, which is why a good kipper is only eaten in April-May. It goes up the Danube as far as Galati and Brăila, but at the mouth of the Delta it is said to be the fattest and tastiest. After a țuică and a grilled scrumbie tested directly in the harbor I completely forgot about the cold on the boat and was finally ready for a week in the Delta. I had the first reason to come back in my backpack - the scrumbia was something special.
Another reason I was to discover over the next few days as I wandered around the village, along the embankment or the flood plains: spring comes to the delta from mid-April. And when it comes, it's not like spring in the city. The reeds, trees and grass here have a different chromatic than what I'm used to, and the mirroring of these colors in the water everywhere creates spontaneous impressionistic paintings, especially at sunset.
And when the plants come to life, the wildlife doesn't wait. It's turn-change time in the delta at this time of year, one of the few times of the year when the species that wintered here have not yet left for the north and those returning from the deltas of Africa have already returned. The skies are non-stop with large flocks, a to-and-fro that outstrips even the busiest airports in terms of traffic.
And the birds that come, they come dressed in festive robes. It's mating season, and it's not appropriate to show up to the feast in anything but your best clothes. And if you're a troubadour, it's a good idea to bring out the most elaborate trills you know because ladies and damsels don't easily be swayed. Incidentally, this was perhaps the biggest difference from summer: The Delta sings.
Nightingales, larks, woodlarks and woodlarks compete and overlap in varied melodies, sometimes lasting for minutes, harmoniously superimposed over the calls of cuckoos, lapwings and storks, which keep a pleasant background rhythm, punctuated now and then gravely by a swan or pheasant. Many times we stopped from our walks just to listen and, although it's beautiful to any layman, for bird-lovers and bird-watchers it should be reason enough to come here in spring. I finally understand why they say the delta goes silent in June. Not because it's not lively, but because it doesn't compare to the varied spring chorus.
The days have passed almost without realizing it. There's a magic about St. has a way of filling your days with beautiful things, even though you literally do nothing but stroll, sit and tell stories or bask in the sun and wind. But it was time to break the spell and hit the road again.

Summer

It's been a while since we've been to the Danube Delta, but as summer is still in full swing and Sfântu is a perfect destination from spring until late fall, I hope you find enough reasons to put this destination on your own map. First impression: it's fuller than in other years! And that's both good and... less good. Like us, a lot of people were no longer willing to travel far, so we all kind of flocked to the beautiful and well-known places. Fortunately, especially in Sfantu Gheorghe, this "crowdedness" feels different. This year, more than ever, the long winter, followed by many weeks of rain, made nature simply explode. I have never felt more "jungle" in Sfântu than this year. From the pier, you can barely make out the reed shells of the buildings. The road to the beach is like a tunnel in places, and areas that I used to know as low vegetation are now barricaded by reeds. It's against this backdrop that I caught a unique, magical phenomenon that lasts only a day: ephemerides.
Taken as a whole, they're a magnificent spectacle. But up close, they're not nearly as attractive. But their story is. "Also called rusalii (after the date on which they make their brief appearance), the little creatures were considered to be the incarnations of young men who died before they had fulfilled their destiny as husbands or wives. They were given one day of the year, the day corresponding to a great Christian feast, the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit or Pentecost, on which they could descend to earth under the power of winged beings to experience for a few moments the joy of love. With the fulfillment of this moment, those who had enjoyed it would die to be resurrected the following year in the same dance of raw beauty."

Autumn

Many people ask what there is to do in the fall in the Delta, when the tourist season is over, the days have started to close in, and the thermometer barely manages to get above "short-sleeve" in the middle of the day. If you're a fisherman, amateur or professional, you already know that fall here you're guaranteed a guaranteed occupation trying your hand at angling for anglers, especially after the mist has fallen. But if this activity not only doesn't excite you, but has an instant sleeping pill effect, what else could you do in the Delta and, in particular, in Sfântu Gheorghe? I went to investigate over a long weekend and came up with a list of various activities, of which surely something-something might appeal to you:
1. Dolce farniente. Or rather, nothing active, but rather contemplative. The Green Village 4* Resort is full of 'nooks and crannies' offering privacy to spend time with yourself, to simply think or read.
2. Walk around the resort and then through the village. A pleasant and undemanding way to discover the marina, the gazebo with swings, the pontoons flanked by greenery, the restaurant, the movie theater and the pampering spa. Then take the main street or the pier to reach the center of the village and the harbor area. There's even a lavish mixed shop and ATM.
3. Boat trip on the canals. Time for a hoodie or jacket and long pants. The shortest outings are by boat to the mouth of the Danube into the Black Sea and to Sahalin on the Turkish Channel (about 2 hours). Then you can go to the next level and reach the Erenciuc Arinj, Lake Erenciuc, Puiu and Red Lake. From Sfântu Gheorghe you can also make trips to Sulina or even to the village of Letea.
4. Kayaking. This activity can be done for leisure, for relaxation, it can be integrated in a competition that takes place here - Delta Kayak Race or it can be an endurance one, where people from all over the world kayak for two months down the Danube, all the way to Sfântu Gheorghe.
5. A beach just for you. Sure, there's no swimsuit or swimming, but the beach at Sfântu induces a state of deep awe of nature, whatever the season. In autumn it is absolutely deserted, with more than 30 km of fine sand stretching from here to Sulina.
6. Sunrises and sunsets. Whatever you see, no two are alike, and in the Deltă the spectacle comes in duplicate, once in the sky and then reflected in the water.
7. Authentic culinary indulgence. I have nothing to back up my claims here, because I always forget to take pictures of the food. Apparently a full stomach is a prerequisite for the mind to be able to think about photography. Don't take my word for it, but try the fish dishes prepared in the resort and in the village.
8. Birdwatching. An activity for which the colder, the better. After the over-summer birds have said goodbye, the Delta is preparing to welcome its northern guests: the birds that choose this place to spend the winter.
9. Photography. Quite obviously, the strong point, never exhausting, always offering, especially in autumn, when the reeds and vegetation are colored in all sorts of warm hues. In addition to nature, the village, daily activities and local people (always asking if you can photograph them) are "subjects" to explore and discover.
10. Corporate fun. Most likely you work somewhere and at some point it will be time for a teambuilding, a professional course or a Christmas party. The distance may be a disadvantage, but it's strongly counterbalanced by the suite of benefits and amenities that Green Village boasts that you might not have guessed: 2 movie theaters that can be perfect for presentations, 3 outdoor rooms, the library and two "towers" that can be set up to suit your team's needs.

Winter

It's 8 o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve and it's just starting to get light. There is no sun, we would have seen it from the terrace of the room if it had appeared, but today it is hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds. Nothing moves. No wind, no life, and the whole of St. San Santu is shrouded in perfect stillness. The Delta seems completely frozen, and it's ideal to pull the duvet over your nose and turn the other way for a proper holiday laze.
We still go out for a walk on the dike that surrounds the village we know so well, except this time it doesn't feel real, more like a wooden set for a movie. The wind doesn't blow, the reeds are sticking, trapped in the ice that covers all the puddles, and not a twig is trembling. Not even enough to shake the powder of the mist.
We pass places where ducks, wigeons and larks were noisy last spring, but now they are almost deserted. There are no fishermen in sight, nor can we hear a boat engine. Only the herons watch from a rise in the ground, motionless and impassive as if they had frozen along with everything else.
The scenery is beautiful and it was a good idea to get out of the room, but it's chilly and after an hour we start to feel it. Back in the village we see the first movement, a man hurrying out of the resort. This is activity, no joke. Under the observation and skill of the chef, the raw materials are being prepared for the pig's feast! It is scrubbed, washed, cut and portioned quickly and accurately.
We make another joke, warm up with a hot drink, test the chorizo and by the time we wake up, lunch is done, the snack is ready and soon the children from the village arrive to sing us carols. We sing to them, and then, after they leave, we sing to each other. The resort employees are all present, friendly and full of jokes and surprises. By dark we are all one big family. And, because we're no longer keeping up appearances, the karaoke machine that's appeared out of nowhere is turned on. It's time for a good time, laughter and good cheer. The gang's breaking up, but we'll start again tomorrow.
Maybe the sun will come out, or if not, maybe we'll take a boat and look for him on the Turkish Gorge. Or we run to Sulina, the water level's low and we can drive up and see the codalbi. Or we sleep late and wake up straight for Christmas dinner, it's sure to be something special and end with a party.
How's Christmas at the Green Village? Expect warm indoors, a festive atmosphere enlivened by the village choir of 'old ladies', varied, delicious and plentiful food, cheerful people and a great Green team. Oh, I almost forgot, the beach at Sfântu Gheorghe in winter gave us the same feeling of immensity, serenity and tranquility as every time we came here.