Now in the grandly titled Delta Nature Resort which is about 20km upstream of Tulcea. We were bought here by a bloke called Vlad; fortunately, he had none of the xenophobic nature of his namesake; rather, he was a jovial, engaging man with a slightly old car. He drove us here carefully, except for a perilous moment when he tried for the dubious extra security of his seat belt while travelling at 50kph.

The Nature resort. Well, it’s a big wetland lake like so many of the others that we have seen over the last few days, reed beds, hanging trees and, of course, birds. The resort has been embedded on the side of the hill, not really adding to the place, but not detracting too much from it either. It’s has pretentions to being five star; we were given a fruity cocktail when we walked through the door, the receptionist knew who we were without look it up, and took five minutes to describe the many features of our chalet (“this is the wardrobe” — good to know). Any attempt at having an “environmental feel” as my Rough Guide tells me, is destroyed by the double aircon units, and general feeling of excess here.

It’s got a slightly tatty feel for swanky place. A guy had to climb down a manhole to switch on the jacuzzi; he left the cover off, the hole left waiting to catch a small child. The pool is small and the underwater light fittings slightly wobbly. But it all worked, so I am now swum, showered, jacuzzied and sauna-ed. Best of all was a wobbly, imcompetent hour rowing on the lake. Got to see two snakes this time, the occasional fish, and the birds up close, as well as many water lillies and reed beds, generally while crashing into them.

Back to the inevitable chocolates on the bed, with covers carefully turned down. Always an effort to do it yourself, I find. Not sure what the food is going to be like, but pretentious and not that friendly for the veggie I suspect, as well as being pointlessly expensive.

Quite enjoying it, in spite of myself, but am glad we are here for only a day; without a car, we would be have been stuck with expensive taxi rides everywhere, and the polite staff would drive me mad after more.

Written on 09/07/2009