The lands of Dobruja are formed by a low-lying mountain range that diverts the Danube north on its voyage to the sea. With the landscape mostly given over to agriculture, most of the population lives on the coast, where you can find some of Europe’s most beautiful beaches and dramatic seaside cliffs. Ancient ruins and fortresses dot the entire coast and offer limitless potential for exploration between the beachside cocktails.
Dobruja is a land of rolling hills and wide expanses of fertile land. At its edges, though, lie an endless morass of wetlands and forests amidst a riverine labyrinth. The ever-shifting silhouette of the Danube further complicated the region’s settlement by denying Dobruja a fixed geographical extent. As a result, even the Romans initially chose not to occupy the northern two-thirds of the area, building their fortifications along Trajan’s Wall, which can still be seen today. For the adventurous tourist, Dobruja offers a wild and rugged landscape with the cities and ruins of the people who made it their home.
Indeed, the region’s rural character allows us to see with remarkable clarity the ruins of many Roman castles and settlements scattered around the region. The coastline was colonized by the Greeks already in early antiquity, though most of the Greek ruins left today are from the medieval Byzantine period. The Romans built their fortified border along the Danube, the Moesian Limes. In Dobruja, they were faced with a quandary: the river added unnecessary complexity to the defensive line. Trajan initially chose to wall Northern Dobruja off from the Empire, but by the time of Constantine the Great in the 4th century, the Romans had thoroughly colonized the region.
Dobruja was famously an incredible melting pot of cultures and identities. Maps from the early 20th-century show dozens of ethnic groups scattered around the region like a quilt. Ruled for centuries by the Ottomans, the marginal land attracted people looking for a new life. There were populations of Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Germans, and Gypsies scattered throughout the region. After the First and Second World Wars, forced population transfers saw most of this ethnic diversity dissipate. Today though, the region is still one of the more diverse in Europe. Split between Romania and Bulgaria, there are still significant Turkish and Gypsy minorities in the region.
Today it is a region you visit to enjoy the rustic charm of a region where most people get their livelihood from farming or fishing, but also with spectacular beaches.
