Romania Tourism Revamp Aims For More Danube, Less Dracula
- Investors seeing growth potential in EU’s second-poorest state
- Romania seeks to lure tourists, investors to boost economy
Boats sit on the Danube in Mila, Romania.
Photographer: Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
At Romania’s rustic eastern shore, where the 1,800 mile-long Danube empties into the Black Sea, four-time Olympic rowing champion Ivan Patzaichin sees green.
Patzaichin is crisscrossing the Danube Delta of his youth, investing money and creating an eco-tourist business within the verdant walls of weeping willows alive with waterfowl and wild lilies. It’s a labor of love that he hopes will bring capital to one of Romania’s poorest regions and show local settlers eking out a living in a marshland larger than Rhode Island how to survive in a modern world traveled by cash-rich tourists.