I admired people who know how to express their freedom, who know and can satisfy their desires. Those who want to do that. Now I don't mean the freedom to be against it, to be dissatisfied, and to show it very loudly. I'm not interested in that... I'm talking about something much less socially important. Something that concerns the satisfaction of personal pleasures, even if it may seem a little exaggerated.
The tabloids are full of examples. The eccentricities of celebrities and the very rich. They may be an example, but I am not referring to these, because they may be false and not reflect the personality, but only a desire for public exposure and much too great vanity. For example, I don't know which star tells that she suddenly wanted to drink coffee in Paris, 2000 km away from her home, and drank it!
I refer to the manifestations of freedom and the slight eccentricity of ordinary people.
I've heard stories about friends or colleagues of my friends who suddenly decide and immediately go to faraway places just for a walk or an exhibition, shop... well, especially before the pandemic!
I, unfortunately, have my freedom encumbered by a lot of things and obligations, but mostly encumbered by myself and my conceptions as an old man.
Well, one summer Sunday I made up my mind. I told my wife that we would have lunch by the sea, we got in the car and drove to the Black Sea in Bulgaria. In a small, unassuming village, Shabla. Almost 300 km and four hours of driving.
Because we have a past marked by a passion for the sea, for the sea as far away from so-called civilization as possible. Without being camping enthusiasts, we chose in our youth the least developed and most non-conformist place on the Black Sea in Romania, the country where we live, namely the village of Vama Veche, near the border with Bulgaria.
This is what our beach looked like in 1990. 1995 was the last year at Vama Veche. That's because this place changed quickly, it became a favorite place for young party people, who occupied the beach and with them, a lot of terraces and bars appeared.
The peace and quiet were gone forever.
Until 1990 it was almost impossible for Romanians to travel abroad. After that, with the country's exit from communism, the borders were opened and we spent the next 25 years only in Bulgaria, where the Black Sea is more beautiful than in Romania.
My favorite places to spend my holidays were Balchik, Sunny Beach, Nessebar, and Sozopol, as I said, in Bulgaria. All this time I was nostalgic for the place at Vama Veche and the wild, undeveloped beach there. I thought there was no such thing anymore...
In 2020 my son recommended Shabla. The Black Sea near the village of Shabla. A place I passed by dozens of times on my way to Balchik!
In fact, my son recommended the seaside restaurant at Shabla. We went there to eat and discovered paradise lost. A sort of Vama Veche with a much bigger beach.
What a joke! I passed this place for 25 years without knowing that there was the sea I thought I had lost!
This is the place chosen for this Sunday madness. That is to eat fish at the Black Sea shore, for which we drove a total of 600 km and stayed in the car for eight hours. Only four hours left for the sea!
I couldn't even find a seat at the outside tables on the cliff. It was a small disappointment that quickly passed because of the very tasty fish we ate.
The restaurant is saying a lot. It is a kind of tavern built of wood and reeds. Just the thing for that place. It just needed shelter from the sun, with shade and a little coolness. The rest was just good food.
My wife doesn't even eat fish. She had to settle for cheese fries. The side of fish, fried sardines, and fish soup were for me. Nothing fancy, basic fisherman's food but it has the great advantage of being made from very fresh fish and smelling of the sea. The passionate know what that means.
The goal, or rather the pretext for this little folly, has been achieved. A few hours left just to see the beach and the sea. We didn't come prepared either to sunbathe or swim in the sea, so we just loved the sight and smell of the sea!
After testing the water a bit with our feet we started looking at the neighbors.
Unlike the seaside resorts where the beaches are full of people sitting close on top of each other, here there is a lot of space, and our neighbors were beach slippers, I don't know if abandoned or forgotten and had some empty chairs.
After taking the photos I noticed something that appeared in both of the above.
Approaching and searching in the sand I found a head... of a doll.
Now, when I look at the photos again, I realize that I don't actually know if it was a doll's head or if it was a doll buried in the sand. That will remain a mystery to me!
I love photographing people who photograph! I noticed something interesting in the following photos...
I took two photos that should have been identical and yet, they are not. In the second photo, the woman in the foreground fooled the lens of my camera and left the group in the back in a blur. The first photo didn't!
I'm not saying it's strange, it has to do with the movement and position of the camera but I like to think it was an external intervention and not my work.
I like so much in such places, that people are left alone and everyone behaves and relaxes as he wants, each with his own thoughts and problems...
Unfortunately, when we have a few hours at our disposal, time seems to pass even faster. Before getting ready to leave, we walk a little more along the cliff. From above, looking at this place, I realize that there was a summer camp, probably for young people, before 1990, when the communist party was in power here too. We can see the ruins of the cottages. It is almost unbelievable that they remain undamaged, more than thirty years after the fall of communism.
Towards the sea, on the beach, there is a vestige of the Second World War. A bunker. There are many, there is one at Vama Veche, in Romania.
This hot and dry summer has dried out the vegetation around the area. These were poppies.
It was a short stay but well worth it, both the expense and the fatigue. To the sea, as in fact, it's all about the sea, the sea made everything here possible. Always one last look!
Now it ends with a stairway. A stairway that doesn't go up, it's a stairway down to heaven! A lost paradise, because now I don't perceive it as paradise, as I felt when I was young!
Explanatory note.
From Romania one passes into Bulgaria via Vama Veche. Vama Veche is 2 km from the border. From the border to Shabla is 20 km.
This means that only 22 km separates the fishing village of Vama Veche, where I spent the most beautiful holidays of my youth, from Shabla, an even more beautiful place, and I didn't know that. I found out 25 years too late!
