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Sometimes it's not everything about the destination but also about the whole ride until you get there which creates a new journey before the actual one.

I know that if you've been following me for a while now, most likely you got used with my "Let's travel together" series which is mainly focusing on a destination, but since there is a lot to be said before we reached our destination I thought it would be a great loss now to make this post where we've spent 16 hours on the road to get in Tulcea.
So, I'd like to begin this post by saying that perhaps 80% of my trips were always taken together with my family while the minor percentage represents spontaneous journeys with my friends but which were more frequent when I was living in the capital of Romania and we could literally take train rides in any part of the country.
I won't lie saying that this is my first trip with my boyfriend because we did have a few such adventures before but they were always together with my sister or my parents too. So the "first" thing represented in this trip is that we finally managed to get on a trip of two.
Just him and I for a couple of days in a place that I've first visited around 4-5 years ago with my family but which I promised that I'll return one day because it's one of those experiences filled with so many activities that you won't even realize what happened until it ends.

So what better moment to repeat it, if not in two?

I know that perhaps for some of you might sound weird to take 4 years until you get to enjoy this experience with your loved one but let's say that we don't have one of the most common relationships and I honestly prefer it to happen later than never. And who knows? Maybe this trip was just the beginning of many more coming up sooner than expected!

As a quick reminder: I live in Sibiu (Romania), which is pretty close to the center of the country. And the destination we've set for our first trip in two was going to be Tulcea, which is the municipality of the Dobrogea territory that is located on the southeast side of the country, just around 100km away from Odesa, Ukraine.

In terms of distance, there are around 570km to be driven which would take at least 8 hours if we would opt in for a car, but since we don't have a car yet and the prices for renting one were crazy at that moment, we decided to take a train ride which turned the whole journey until we reach the destination in no less than 16 hours to be spent in 3 trains.

I know that trains are supposed to represent a quicker and cheaper way of moving from one place to another but unfortunately, in Romania, this represents quite the opposite, like many other things. It's not something that I'm proud of, especially since there are many tourists visiting these lands, and as much as they get excited seeing some places, as quick they become disgusted when they jump in a train that won't move faster than 60km/h due to the trains and rails that have been in a precarious state for many years now and which are not going to become better anytime soon either.

But we left behind those thoughts for a while and jumped on our first train at 3:30 AM in the morning. A thing that I appreciated though was that the trains were looking pretty decent from what I've seen during my rides with this method of public transport which felt like a bliss thinking that we could kill some good hours of the ride sleeping until we were reaching the capital of Romania and had to switch the trains.

Unfortunately, everything remained just a beautiful dream because even though there were just a few other people on board, they were quite noisy without giving a damn that there are other people who want to rest. So we ended up rolling our eyes and listening to music that wasn't even able to cover the whole noise created by those guys. Being still night outside we weren't able to take any pictures either, nor to look out the window, so we just pushed our limits and waited in silence to swap trains with the hope that we will meet more nice people during our ride.

Happily, 7 hours away since our train ride began, we were already on a different train and on a route with lots to be seen outside the window especially since it wasn't night anymore. On the way from Bucharest to Constanta, you will have to cross quite a few bridges but one that is impossible not to notice is known as Anghel Saligny (picture 1) which represents the first bridge created to make possible the cross over the water and it stands still since 1895.

In the 2nd picture, you will see the single nuclear power station from Romania, which I only found out about when some kids were asking their parents what can be seen in the distance. It's both funny and ironic how no one ever knew what this place is until a war on the border with Romania began and more details came out.

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3 hours later we finally reached Constanta which represented our last stop before making it to our destination but where we had to wait around 2 hours and a half before the train we had to jump in was coming by. So we took this time as an opportunity to walk in town and move our feet after so much time spent sitting on the chair.

While visiting the most famous city close to The Black Sea represented a common activity during my college years when I was taking lots of spontaneous train rides on this way, it's been around 3 years since I've last been in this place so it felt like meeting again a friend that I wasn't seeing for quite a while. But a more genuine joy and excitement was shared by my boyfriend who never saw the sea by now, nor this city which has plenty of interesting spots for the tourists that are coming from all over the place. So we left behind the fatigue accumulated on the road and started our first exploration in two.

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One of the main attractions of the city is the Casino that became popular for many activities that was home to in the past, and especially that it's placed in a very beautiful location where you have access on everything, from feeling the waves of The Black Sea to walking just 5 minutes until you meet other touristic attractions or even the center of the town.

While the Casino represented an abandoned place that could be noticed daily becoming more and more degraded, last year the renovation process has begun so even if the pictures taken in front of it doesn't represent an exciting thing anymore these days, I personally can't wait to see it renovated. And happily, I've managed to see it during all four seasons of the year so I can live with those memories until I'll be able to see its new face.

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From this point, depending on your walking speed, you will need to move your feet for just around 5-10 minutes until you will reach a boat dock that gathers a lot of curious eyes no matter what the season is. Personally, I have no knowledge at all when it comes to boats but I do admire seeing them even if just from the distance. From what I understood, in August when we had this trip there was also some kind of holiday in town which was making the harbor a lot more crowded than usual, and perhaps that was the reason the access to get closer to the boats was forbidden.

After we got enough of the Vitamin SEA and finished exploring the boats, we found a place where to sit for a while and have a sandwich before going back to the train station from where we entered on the last quarter of our train ride, not being needed to switch the trains anymore.

It's true that the train we jumped in, was the worst I've ever seen in my life with lots of dust and rust even on the places dedicated to people to stay during their ride, but since we were going to cross a surface that I've never seen from the train, we were quite excited and spent 90% of the time standing up or walking in the train. Still on my trip taken 4-5 years ago with my parents, we managed to see Dobrogea Wind Farm which could be noticed from the train too. So many beautiful memories created on these lands!

A less exciting thing noticed from the train though, was this station which had a very deplorable condition. Now thinking about all the aspects said about the trains and the rails themselves, it's not a weird thing seeing some stations looking like this, but still... it's hard to imagine that you could wait for the train in a place like the one from the image above without being afraid that the ceiling could collapse in any moment, lol.

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From this point, the rest of the ride passed pretty fast knowing that we are getting closer and closer to the destination, so the excitement reached new limits. There weren't a lot of activities but actually dedicated the whole time watching outside the window and making plans for what to see in the following days that we were going to spend together, but honestly watching these pictures now when we still struggle with snow and cold times, it does feel like a great moment to be alive.

Anyway, after a few more hours passed, we finally reached Tulcea at around 8:30 PM, so we can easily count a total of a little over 16 hours spent on our train ride. I won't mention again our fatigue which could be felt from the first hours of our ride due to lack of sleep, but as soon as we reached the hotel we dropped our baggage and went to a supermarket to do some shopping to get food for the next days and then went to sleep because the next day was going to begin quite early.

I know that this might seem like a long post with lots of thoughts shared, but as I said at the beginning, spending 16 hours on a train ride is more than most of my daily trips last so I couldn't miss the chance not to talk about it and share some of the things we've seen in all this time. ❤️

More articles from the same adventure:

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT TRIP! 🗾

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Let's travel together #253 - Tales of a 16 hours long train ride

So what better moment to repeat it, if not in two?

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT TRIP! 🗾