First mentioned in 1318, the fishing village of Sfantu Gheorghe is well-known for its traditional cooking, including the famous black caviar (icre negre). A 30-minute walk will take you to one of the longest strips of beach on the Romanian Black Sea coast. Naturally we wanted to walk in the Black Sea so off we trotted only to be stopped by a soldier who said we must only walk to the left. Happy to comply we kept going and ran into another soldier - this one had stripes so I think he was more important!! Again he said we must keep to the left of the beach only as they were doing "army exercises". Finally made it to the beach and had walked about 100 metres to the left when we heard BOOM........they were exploding bombs!!! Anyway we kept going and walked along the beach, came across a nudist who waved to us, meandered past some cattle and horses without a fence in sight and then left the beach to head back to town. Farewelled the soldiers and assured them we were going back to the town. No sooner had we got about 200 metres along the road and we heard WHOOSH and turned around to see missiles being fired into the air. We were not sure whether to walk or run.....six Aussies are not used to hearing or seeing this every day!!

After such an adventurous day it was a relief to get back to the ship for well earned drinks with our new found friends.