Romania: the Danube Delta, Dobrogea and Bucharest

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Bucharest

   Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport to your hotel in central Bucharest

   • Environ 45 min de route
   • Repas du soir
   • Nuit : Bucharest
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport (OTP) at Otopeni, about 17 km north of the centre. A driver meets you in the arrivals hall whatever your flight time and takes you to our central hotel, 30 to 60 minutes depending on traffic. If you land early, walk down Calea Victoriei, the city's grand avenue, past the domed Romanian Athenaeum concert hall and Revolution Square, where the crowds of December 1989 turned on Ceausescu. In the evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing: how the boats work in the delta, what to pack for early mornings on the water, and how the free afternoons fit in. Then we walk into the Old Town for a welcome dinner of Romanian food: sarmale cabbage rolls, mici sausages from the grill, polenta with sour cream and cheese, and papanasi doughnuts if you have room. Plan to land by about 5 pm to make the briefing; later arrivals are met and join us at dinner or at breakfast.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport (OTP)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner in the Old Town

   Temps libre : Free until the evening briefing

   

2. Jour 2 : Bucharest: the Palace of Parliament and the Old Town

   The Palace of Parliament, then the Old Town on foot

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bucharest
   Détail du jour 2

   We start at the Palace of Parliament on a booked morning tour, before the later groups arrive. Ceausescu had a whole district cleared in the 1980s to build it, and the guided route through its marble halls, staircases and balcony shows the scale of what he wanted. Bring your passport: it is checked at the door. After a sit-down lunch, a licensed local guide walks us through the Old Town for about two hours: the small Stavropoleos Monastery, built in 1724, with its carved stone porch and a courtyard of old gravestones; the ruins of the Old Princely Court, where Vlad the Impaler issued decrees; the courtyard inn of Hanul lui Manuc; and the covered passages off Lipscani street, where merchants once traded. We finish by mid-afternoon and the rest of the day is free: a coffee in the passages, the National Museum of Art, the open-air Village Museum with your guide (the active option, entry included), or a rest before dinner wherever you like.

   Compris

   • Palace of Parliament guided tour (entry included)
   • Sit-down lunch in central Bucharest
   • Old Town walk with a licensed local guide: Stavropoleos Monastery, the Old Princely Court, Hanul lui Manuc and the Lipscani passages

   Option plus facile : Skip the Old Town walk after lunch and rest at the hotel, a short walk from the Old Town.

   Option plus active : In the late afternoon, the open-air Village Museum by Herastrau lake with your guide, entry included: wooden churches, windmills and farmhouses moved from across Romania.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free

   Activité : About 3 hours on foot over the day, on pavements and stairs. Passport needed for the Palace of Parliament.

   

3. Jour 3 : To Tulcea and by boat into the delta

   Bucharest to Tulcea, then by boat down the Sulina branch to Crisan

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Crisan (Danube Delta)
   Détail du jour 3

   We leave Bucharest at 8:30 am and drive east across the flat Baragan plain, cross the Danube and enter Dobrogea, the strip of land between the river and the Black Sea. This is the longest drive of the trip, about 275 km and four hours, with a coffee stop near the Danube crossing at about the halfway mark, because the delta has no road in: Tulcea is as far as the vehicle goes. We arrive for a sit-down lunch by the river, then visit the Danube Delta Eco-Tourism Museum Centre, whose aquarium and displays give a first look at the fish, birds and reed beds we will spend the next days among. In the middle of the afternoon our luggage goes onto a fast boat and we follow the Sulina branch, the straight shipping channel cut through the delta in the 19th century, for about an hour to Crisan. Our base for three nights sits on the water's edge. Dinner is at the guesthouse, often fish, and the first herons and cormorants fly over the terrace at dusk.

   Compris

   • Drive from Bucharest to Tulcea with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch in Tulcea
   • Danube Delta Eco-Tourism Museum Centre, Tulcea (entry included)
   • Fast boat from Tulcea to Crisan
   • Dinner at the delta base

   Temps libre : Evening free at the delta base

   Activité : The longest travel day: about 4 hours of driving with a stop, then about an hour by boat. Keep a warm layer to hand for the boat.

4. Jour 4 : Small boats to the lakes and Mila 23

   Crisan through the side channels to the lakes and Mila 23, and back

   • En bateau
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Crisan (Danube Delta)
   Détail du jour 4

   Breakfast is from 6:30, and at about 7 am we step into small boats with a local bird guide, the best hours of the day for birds and the calmest water. The boats leave the main channel for narrow side canals under willows and through reed beds, cutting the engine where the birds are close. Great white pelicans, pygmy cormorants, squacco and purple herons, glossy ibis and spoonbills are all regulars from April; white-tailed eagles are seen most weeks. We cross open lakes where pelicans fish together, then late in the morning tie up at Mila 23, a Lipovan fishing village. The Lipovans are Old Believers whose ancestors, refusing the church reforms of the 1660s, settled in the delta in waves from the 17th and 18th centuries; their wooden houses are painted blue and white under reed roofs. Lunch is fish soup and fish from the delta at a village home. We are back at Crisan by about 2 pm, and the afternoon is free to rest, read on the jetty or walk the village path.

   Compris

   • Morning in small boats with a local bird guide through the side channels and lakes
   • Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve access permit
   • Mila 23 Lipovan village walk
   • Lunch in Mila 23
   • Dinner at the delta base

   Option plus facile : Stay at the base in the afternoon; nothing else is planned.

   Option plus active : A short sunset paddle or row in the channel near the base, arranged with the boatmen on the day.

   Temps libre : Afternoon free at Crisan

   Activité : About 4 to 5 hours in an open boat with stops. Binoculars make the morning; we carry a few spare pairs.

5. Jour 5 : Letea forest and the northern channels

   Crisan north through the channels to Letea village and the Letea forest, and back

   • En bateau
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Crisan (Danube Delta)
   Détail du jour 5

   A second early start at about 7 am, this time heading north through different channels and lakes towards Letea, with birding stops on the way. Letea village sits on a sand ridge between the delta's two northern branches; from there a local driver takes us a few kilometres along a sand track to the edge of the Letea forest, protected since 1938 and the oldest nature reserve in Romania. With our guide we walk the permitted path among old oaks, ash and white poplars hung with climbing vines, a forest that looks out of place this far north, with sand dunes between the trees and herds of free-roaming horses grazing at the edges. Lunch is grilled fish served on the boat in a quiet channel. We take a different route back, past lakes where pelicans rest in the early afternoon heat, and reach Crisan by late afternoon. The last delta evening is for the terrace and the sunset over the water.

   Compris

   • Full day in small boats with a local bird guide
   • Letea village and a local driver on the sand track
   • Guided walk at the edge of the Letea forest
   • Lunch on the boat
   • Dinner at the delta base

   Option plus facile : Stay with the boat at Letea and watch the channel while the group walks; the forest walk is about 2 km on sand.

   Temps libre : Evening free at Crisan

   Activité : The longest day on the water, about 6 to 7 hours with the stop at Letea. About 2 km on foot on a sandy track.

   

6. Jour 6 : Histria and on to Constanta

   Crisan by boat to Tulcea, then by road to Histria and Constanta

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Constanta
   Détail du jour 6

   After breakfast the boat takes us and our luggage back up the Sulina branch to Tulcea, about an hour, where our vehicle is waiting. We drive south through Dobrogea's low hills and lakeside villages, about an hour and a quarter, to Histria on the shore of Lake Sinoe. Greek colonists from Miletus founded the city here in the 7th century BC, when the lake was still an open bay of the Black Sea; it later became Roman and was abandoned when the harbour silted up. With a local guide we walk the walls, the sacred area with its temples, the Roman baths and the Christian basilicas, about an hour and a half on uneven ground, then look at the finds in the site museum. After a sit-down lunch nearby we drive about an hour to Constanta, ancient Tomis, where the poet Ovid lived in exile. Late in the afternoon we walk the seafront to the Art Nouveau Casino of 1910 and Ovid Square. The evening is yours.

   Compris

   • Boat from Crisan to Tulcea
   • Histria with a local guide and the site museum (entry included)
   • Sit-down lunch near Histria
   • Late-afternoon walk on Constanta's seafront: the Casino and Ovid Square

   Option plus facile : Rest in the shade by the Histria museum while the group walks the far end of the site.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Constanta

   Activité : About 1.5 km on uneven ground and grass at Histria; little shade, so bring a hat.

7. Jour 7 : Constanta's Roman town and back to Bucharest

   Constanta to Bucharest on the A2 motorway

   • Environ 3 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Bucharest
   Détail du jour 7

   We are at the National History and Archaeology Museum when it opens (Romanian museums often close one day a week, so if ours falls on it we visit on the afternoon of day 6 instead), in the old town hall on Ovid Square, for the finds of Greek and Roman Tomis. Next door is the Roman Mosaic Edifice, a huge floor of coloured stone from a building that stood above the ancient harbour, reopened in 2025 after restoration. A few streets away, the Carol I Mosque, finished in 1913, has a minaret you can climb for a view over the port and the old town. After a sit-down lunch in Constanta we drive about three hours to Bucharest on the A2 motorway, crossing the Danube at Cernavoda, and reach our hotel by late afternoon. You have time to rest or walk before we meet for a farewell dinner in the Old Town, the right moment to swap bird lists and photos from the week.

   Compris

   • National History and Archaeology Museum, Constanta (entry included)
   • The Roman Mosaic Edifice (entry included)
   • Carol I Mosque and its minaret (entry included)
   • Sit-down lunch in Constanta
   • Drive to Bucharest with your guide
   • Farewell dinner in Bucharest's Old Town

   Option plus facile : Skip the minaret's narrow spiral stair and wait in the mosque courtyard.

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free in Bucharest

   Activité : The minaret has a long, narrow spiral staircase.

8. Jour 8 : Leave Bucharest

   Central Bucharest to Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport

   • Environ 45 min de route
   • Petit-déjeuner
   Détail du jour 8

   The trip ends after breakfast. A driver takes you from the hotel to Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport (OTP), about 17 km north, timed to your flight; allow 45 to 60 minutes for the drive in weekday traffic and arrive two hours before departure. There are no activities today, so any flight time works. If your flight leaves in the evening, the hotel keeps your luggage and you have most of a day in the city: the Village Museum by Herastrau lake, the National Museum of Art in the former royal palace, the Romanian Athenaeum, or a long lunch in the Old Town. Your guide helps you plan it at breakfast and checks your transfer time before saying goodbye. If you want more time in Romania, the Transylvania trip also starts and ends in Bucharest, and we can add nights in the city between the two.

   Compris

   • Drop-off at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport (OTP), timed to your flight

   Temps libre : Free until your airport transfer

   Activité : Any flight time works; luggage storage at the hotel for late flights.

Faune et météo : Pelicans and most breeding birds are in the delta from April; May and early June are the peak. July and August are hot and mosquito-heavy, so we do not run then. September brings migrating birds and fewer insects; from October bird numbers fall sharply.

• Bucharest2 nuits
• Crisan (Danube Delta)3 nuits
• Constanta1 nuit
• Bucharest1 nuit