Plaja 2 Mai: Before Vama Veche Had Cars, This Is Where the Students Went

Romania | 2 Mai | Constanța County, Dobrogea

The bohemian, free-spirited reputation usually credited entirely to Vama Veche actually began here, at 2 Mai, first. One firsthand account I found, an interview with a man who first visited as a child in the mid-1960s, describes it plainly: Cluj University held a standing arrangement with the village, bussing students down for two-week stays between 15 June and 15 September, building its own canteen on site for exactly this purpose. “The first sixteen years, I went only to 2 Mai,” he recalled. “Vama Veche came later, once we had a car and could move around more easily.” A nudist section, separated from the rest of the beach by a small stream, already existed in the 1960s, somewhere between what locals now call Şoni and Roata — and by his account, the beach itself was considerably wider then, having lost some 60 metres to erosion in the decades since.

I find this origin story more interesting than the more commonly repeated one, because it complicates the tidy narrative that Vama Veche alone was communist Romania’s sanctioned escape valve for nonconformists. 2 Mai was the quieter, earlier version — emptier, with no kiosks and nobody daring to put up so much as a wooden stall, since nature, in his words, was simply left in charge. Moving further south came later, and gradually, as visitors with cars and a taste for something wilder pushed past 2 Mai toward Vama Veche and eventually toward a cape called Cazemată, where the Romanian Army’s naval infantry maintained an active firing range — soldiers would walk the beach beforehand, telling sunbathers to gather their things and clear out before live exercises began. The military has since privatised that land, and large new buildings now stand where the range once was.

Getting There: Between Mangalia and Vama Veche, Reachable Only by Road

2 Mai sits roughly five kilometres south of Mangalia and six to seven kilometres north of Vama Veche Beach Romania, both within the same general stretch of coast I’ve already catalogued for this project. Mangalia is the final stop on the coastal railway line, so anyone arriving by train continues from there by road. Minibuses run from the Mangalia station to 2 Mai in under ten minutes, and through summer they continue operating through the night at roughly fifteen-minute intervals. By car, the drive south from Constanța along DN39 passes through the Eforie resorts and Mangalia before reaching the village.

The Beach: Bordered by the Port Breakwater, Largely Unorganised, Connecting Directly to Vama Veche

The beach at 2 Mai is bounded on its northern side by the breakwater of Mangalia’s harbour, and to the south by an undeveloped stretch of coast that connects directly to Vama Veche’s own beach — the two genuinely share a continuous shoreline rather than being separated by any real distance. Most of the sand remains unorganised, without the rows of standard beach infrastructure found further north along the coast, and camping directly on the sand, in tents or simply under the open sky, has remained a normal and accepted way to spend a stay here for as long as the village has drawn visitors at all.

What was once a quiet, little-known stop has become, in recent years, considerably busier during summer, with visitors drawn specifically by accommodation prices lower than the more established resorts further up the coast.

Plaja 2 Mai, between Mangalia and Vama Veche, was the original destination for the free, unconventional beach culture more commonly credited to its southern neighbour — Cluj University brought students here on standing summer arrangements from the 1960s onward, with an informal nudist section already in place by then, and visitors only began pushing further south toward Vama Veche once they had their own transport. The beach itself, bordered by the Mangalia port breakwater to the north, remains largely unorganised and connects directly to Vama Veche’s shore to the south, with camping a longstanding and accepted part of how people spend their time here. Reachable by minibus from Mangalia’s train station or by road via DN39 from Constanța.

Take the train to Mangalia, then the minibus south. Camp on the sand if that’s the experience you’re after. Walk the unbroken shore south toward Vama Veche if you want to see how the two genuinely connect.