No place is like home… at least this is what people say. Every now and then, I tend to agree with this saying. Although I’m not very happy when thinking about coming home, because of some not-so-pleasant memories about the people from the city, each time I see myself in the city, I can’t help feeling like under a spell. Time freezes and there is nothing except me and the old Danube. A
ll the past moments, my childhood, tales and legends heard from the older people, pirates, sailors, queens and kings that passed through Sulina, they all come together in an everlasting dream.
Sulina smells like history… and even though bombarded in WW2, its ancient greatness has not been completely destroyed. Yes, you need to know some of the past to see it, but still, even for those completely outside its life there are still some signs every here and there.
Just walking along the Danube makes me see the old wooden sailing boats coasting in Sulina, after a long trip.
I would have loved to live in that time…When Sulina was a “porto franco”: a free port for all Europe, for the whole world… When all great power had an embassy or a consulate in Sulina. When the city was split in two, just like Berlin was split… when the idea of a unite Europe came to life under the “Commission Européenne du Danube”. You can see some old buildings, telling their stories in just a second… that Greek style must have been the home of a rich merchant and that other one surely accommodated some Italian family. Everything is reign by the Palace…the impressive building on the Danube shore which guards every ship who is going in or out
I can only remember the lives of the sailors when I was a child… and their stories of how they travelled across the globe, seeing the far away ports of Madagascar of Taiwan. I recall the warm, nice smell of summer nights on the Danube shores, with some good music coming from one of the terraces from the port. And the frogs’ songs in the sunset… It’s almost unreal how every time I walk in this landscape I see myself having 10 years and looking for my parents who are dancing… And then, then it’s the night sky… full of stars, thanks to the few electrical lights in the area. It appears like all stars in the universe are there…Simply amazing… the port. Sailor’s lives must have been amazing back then… one trip, one odyssey full of adventures and danger. Some of the stories are told by the very tombs and monuments of those who are buried in Sulina’s cemetery.
I am leaving tomorrow morning… starting tomorrow, I will remember my age, and the time I live in… I still have one day
