Seaside Holiday ... Thirty Years Ago

Today is the first day of May. International Labor Day! I remember my youth, Romania was a communist country where May 1 was mandatory to celebrate. Fortunately, this day turns into a huge country holiday, with barbecues and lots of beer. Workers need to have fun from time to time, to forget about hard work.

The first day of May also became the first day to go to sea in Romania. At the Black Sea! Unfortunately, this Covid 19 managed that this year we will not be able to go to sea. We can't even leave the house.

I remember the three-day vacation at sea that began in early May, decades ago. For the climate in Romania it's too early for the sea, at the seaside it's quite cold and the wind is strong. However, tens of thousands of young people are just waiting to reach the sea, not for the beach, especially for parties and heating with alcohol.

Two resorts were preferred then, two totally different resorts. Mamaia and Vama Veche! Mamaia was preferred by so-called serious people, families with children. Instead, Vama Veche was the meeting place of young people, a kind of hippie generation as it could be in a totalitarian, communist society.

Music, alcohol and freedom (supervised by security and militia). Vama Veche was a fishing village on the border with Bulgaria.

Before 1989 (the year of the Romanian revolution, the moment when communism disappeared ... except the communists) I used to go to Mamaia. There were better accommodation conditions. I had heard of Vama Veche but I didn't know what it was like there. I was curious to find out how it is because I had heard that it is totally different there.

Starting with 1990, I also arrived at Vama Veche and since then, in the next ten years, only there I saw the sea. I was fascinated!

Now I have to stay at home and think about the sea. At the sea in my youth, at Vama Veche. The only way to get there, to the sea, is only with the help of photos. Paper photos, from 30 years ago. With their help, I am now trying to tell you the story of Vama Veche.

The most nonconformist place in Romania!

Vama Veche is a small fishing village one kilometer away from Bulgaria. In fact, Vama Veche means old customs, the place of passage in the neighboring country. A bay and a small beach on the edge of the village is everything. Everything you need to stay by the sea.

This village was between the 70s and 90s the vacation spot of artists, writers, musicians from Romania. Their desire was to be isolated from the common and crowded places. There were no hotels in Vama Veche, the only accommodation was in the fishermen's houses, so there were few places. Thus, in those years, there were only a few hundred tourists. They appreciated not only the isolation but also the fact that there was the only place where nudism could be done.

Unfortunately, I lost those years and I arrived at Vama Veche for the first time in 1990. This is because some of our friends, whom we met only a year before, took us there with them. Our friends were musicians. They sang rock, which was a music difficult to make in communist Romania. They were avant-garde and bohemian and took us to an unknown and interesting lifestyle.

With the help of the photos I found, I try to present the holiday at Vama Veche before transforming it into what it is today.

I can say that I was lucky to catch a few more years from the old Vama Veche!

Vama Veche was a fishing village with a bay and a beach. That at first. When we got there, the first signs of development began, small shops appeared and the villagers began to build rooms to accommodate tourists. More and more tourists coming.

Far from being crowded, this is also because access was difficult. By train and then by bus. Few came with their car because there were few cars in Romania in the 90's. Almost exclusively Dacia, the car that is assembled in Romania after a Renault model. In those cool times, only a few cars could be seen on the main street of the village.

The secondary streets look like this, as does the means of transport of the locals.

We look forward to summer, every year, to gather our friends and go for ten days to Vama Veche. We all lived in the same house, we rented a house from an old woman. Simple and minimal comfort conditions, with the bathroom somewhere behind the yard. Most tourists had the same conditions, only a few were privileged. Those who built holiday homes and those who were guests in friends' holiday homes. The latter were generally important artists from Romania ... actors, painters, singers.

That's what they sang. Sorin Chifiriuc, Elena Perianu and Valentin Badea. Their band was called Wheel ( in Romanian - "Roata").

Thirty years have passed since then, Sorin is in England, Elena is a piano teacher and Valentin no longer plays. I remained close friends with Elena and Valentin.

I moved away from the subject, I was talking about houses. It was a house I liked very much, a Mediterranean house. It belonged to a former ambassador. I passed this house every day, on the way to the beach. I dreamed a lot about it and I wanted to have one too. It didn't happen.

The house behind me.

The main purpose of the beach vacation was the beach and swimming in the sea. Then I was young and I could stay in the sun for a whole day ...

The main beneficiary of these vacations was my son. He was eight years old when we started going to Vama Veche. Before that I went to Mamaia, the most modern resort in Romania, with new hotels and restaurants. Amusement parks very pleasant for children. Our son really appreciated this and I was afraid that he would not like it in Vama Veche where there is nothing for fun. Only the sea and the sand, only our friends and their stories. I was very pleased to see how my son forgot about electric cars and carousels and other toys. He was attracted only by the beauty of the sea and the simplicity of life in the country, with our friends.

Isn't it wonderful that the main activity, for ten days, is playing in the water and on the beach? Especially if you are lucky enough to be sunny all the time.

Well, it can't always be sunny. In the absence of the sun I had something to do, walks and searches for stones and shells. The Black Sea coast in Romania is flat, only here at Vama Veche there are a few cliffs. This is another reason we like it so much there.

Sometimes the wind was quite annoying and pushed us to other activities on the beach, the walk was one we liked the most...

... especially if we walk Carol, our labrador. A dog that feels great at sea.

Doing the same thing for ten days can be boring. That's if you don't change the location for at least a day. We used to go to visit Histria. A fortress built by the Greeks on the Black Sea in 657 BC. The oldest city in Romania. Unfortunately, the authorities don't give it the care it deserves.

The beach break only happens because of hunger. I always eat more at sea, I often get hungry. Definitely due to too many walks, swimming in the sea and playing on the beach. As there were no restaurants, we ate at home, what we cooked or other small items found at the shop in the village. For the drink I found a small bar on the beach, the beginning of the development of services for tourists.

The fame of this locality and this beach was given by the fact that it was the only beach for nudism. In fact, it was not delimited, some went to the beach in a bathing suit and others did not. No one is upset with anyone, there is a harmony and normalcy nowhere before.

It can easily be said that ...

You Can Leave Your Hat On ...

As I told you, there on the beach you could meet well-known artists, actors. We boys were watching a well-known young actress at the time.

This is how I tried to remember the events of thirty years ago. The beautiful holidays of another time, places and events that are not repeated, have passed with our youth. All with the help of photos found in a forgotten box.

Rightly says that "Every picture tells a story"

That's what I wanted to prove. That you can start from a photo to tell a story. Preferably true, but also imagination can help the parts you forgot.
It can be a help in case of lack of imagination for writing a blog. I used 25 photos but it can be done with just one photo.

This blog took me a whole day to prepare and write. I remembered beautiful moments from my youth. This day was a #beautifulsunday and even a #sublimesunday.

All the photos are mine and the two videos are from Youtube.

As long as we are threatened by this invisible enemy, it's good to protect ourselves!

@bluemoon	About me!	Disclaimer
	I am Dan and I live in Bucharest, Romania. Born in 1954, married and retired. My passions: Art (photography, film, music, painting), Travel and even Cooking.	Since English is not my first language, please forgive any grammatical errors.