Constanta, Romania

Constanta is a important shipping port in Europe and has the potential to become the second largest after Rotterdam. Currently there is a lot of money being spent in the old town fixing up the streets and building exteriors.  The area will be beautiful when completed.

During the communist regime the wounderful buildings in the old town were taken from the owners and have been inhabited by gypsies and poor people.  It has been a difficult task removing people from the historic buildings and returning the buildings to the original owners.  The government has built apartment to relocate people.  The new apartments' cost as little as 3 Euro per month with subsidized utilities.

In Ovidiu Plaza you will find the Museum of Archeology which has a very interesting display that was discovered in 1962 during construction in this area.  The pieces discovered are from when the Roman era.

Fertility Snake

There is also an excellent collection of gold coins and an interesting glass vessel collection.

Baby drinking cup made from blown glass.

In the Roman Mosaics Museum you will find more than 2,000 square meters
 of mosaic from the 4th century.  This was the major trading area for the Romans as the sea came up to this area and good were traded in this area.  This is the largest area that I have seen of a continuous mosaic.  This are was covered during an earthquake so was only discovered in the 60's and is therefore in fairly good shape.

Up the street is the Folk Art Museum.  They have an excellent collection of costumes from the different areas in Romania.  The dress is very similar to the designs from the Ukraine.  Most of the embroidery is raised and either satin stitch, cross stitch or braid sewn in patterns.  I found it very interesting to see embroidered vests made of leather with the inside still having the fur attached.  I can't imagine how hard it is to embroider detailed designs on white leather.



St. Peter and St. Paul's Orthodox Cathedral

 After the visit of the Constanta highlights we were off for tasting.  Romania has very good wine but does not export a lot to Canada.  We could see that in the fields people were picking red grapes and loading them into wooden wagons.  We did not get to see an actual winery during this tour but were located in the middle of a vineyard.  After the wine tasting we saw some traditional dancing.  The steps are very basic for these folk dances.

Romanian folk dance.