Current Time in Constanţa, Romania

Constanţa lies on the Black Sea coast of Romania, in the historic province of Dobrogea between the sea and the lower Danube. The old town occupies a small peninsula that juts into the water, while modern districts spread inland around a vast harbour. Long sandy beaches run north towards the resort strip of Mamaia, and the flat, sunlit landscape of Dobrogea, with its salt lakes and wind farms, stretches out behind.

With a population of around two hundred and eighty thousand in the city and considerably more in its metropolitan area, Constanţa is the largest settlement on the Romanian coast. Its importance is maritime: the Port of Constanţa is the biggest on the Black Sea and one of the busiest in Europe, handling grain, containers and oil, and connected to the Danube by a canal that links it to the river network of central Europe.

The city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Romania. Greek colonists from Miletus founded it as Tomis in the sixth century before Christ, and it later became a prosperous Roman port. The poet Ovid was banished here by the emperor Augustus in the year 8 and spent his last years writing mournful verse about the cold and the frontier, and his statue now stands in the square that carries his name. The city was renamed in the fourth century in honour of the sister of Constantine the Great. Byzantine, Genoese and Ottoman periods followed, and Constanţa returned to Romanian rule in 1878, after which the railway from Bucharest and heavy port investment transformed it into a modern city.

The peninsula holds the finest sights. The Roman Mosaic Edifice preserves an immense floor of coloured stone from a third-century commercial building, and the National History and Archaeology Museum displays Greek and Roman sculpture, including the famous serpent-bodied statue of Glykon. The Casino, an extravagant art nouveau pavilion on the seafront completed in 1910, has become the emblem of the city, and nearby stand the Genoese lighthouse, the Great Mahmudiye Mosque with its climbable minaret and the Orthodox cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.

Cultural life includes an aquarium, a dolphinarium, a planetarium and a folk art museum, along with theatres and a summer season of concerts. In warm months the city fills with holidaymakers heading for Mamaia's beaches and clubs, while the fishing villages, Roman ruins at Histria and vineyards of the surrounding region make good excursions. Dobrogea has long been ethnically mixed, and Romanian, Turkish, Tatar, Greek, Armenian and Aromanian communities have all left their mark on food and architecture.

The A2 motorway and frequent trains connect Constanţa with Bucharest in about two hours, and Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport lies just outside the city, while trams and buses serve local routes. Ovidius University, founded in 1961, teaches medicine, law and marine sciences to a large student body.

Constanţa unites ancient history, seaside leisure and modern commerce, making it Romania's true window on the sea.