Plaja Venus: Where Almost Every Hotel Is Named After a Woman, and Ceaușescu’s Palace Stood Next Door

Romania | Venus | Constanța County, Dobrogea

Almost every hotel at Venus carries a woman’s first name: Dana, Carmen, Afrodita, Raluca, Corina, Brândușa, Claudia, Lidia, Sanda, among others — a deliberate design choice from the resort’s construction between 1969 and 1971, opened to tourism in 1972, built around large green spaces and named directly for the Roman goddess of beauty itself. It is a small, consistent quirk that runs through the entire resort, and once I noticed it, I found myself reading every hotel sign along the promenade looking for the next name on the list.

The resort’s communist-era history runs deeper than its architecture. One detailed account describes Venus as having been one of six marinas where, in the 1970s, the most senior figures in the Romanian communist apparatus, alongside favoured visitors from East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, were permitted to holiday — and the same account notes that Nicolae Ceaușescu’s own summer palace stood immediately next door, a building now serving as the Romanian president’s summer residence. I find this detail genuinely useful for understanding why a beach resort this far south, away from the busier northern strip, was built with this much investment and polish in the first place.

I want to be direct about something I found repeated, in sometimes quite blunt terms, across a number of recent reviews: opinions on Venus’s current condition are genuinely split, and not gently. Several visitors describe the resort as run-down, with uneven or broken pavements, litter, and a beach in places they characterise as poorly maintained — one comparing it unfavourably to a more carefully kept stretch of sand closer to Saturn. Others describe exactly the opposite experience: a wide, clean, white-sand beach with warm, clear water, well suited to families with small children. I would treat both accounts as accurate reflections of different sections of the same long beach and different points in the season, rather than assuming either extreme applies everywhere along the resort’s shore.

Getting There: 3 Kilometres North of Mangalia, via DN39 or the Coastal Railway

Venus sits between the resorts of Saturn to the south and Cap Aurora to the north, roughly three kilometres north of Mangalia, to which it belongs administratively. The drive south from Constanța along the DN39, part of the European route E87, covers around 40 kilometres, passing through Eforie and Olimp before reaching the Venus turn-off. By rail, the Constanța–Mangalia line ends at Mangalia station, with a short taxi ride or minibus connection covering the final stretch north into the resort. Regional minibuses also run frequently from Constanța’s main train station plaza throughout the day.

The Beach: Up to Three Kilometres Long, Divided Into Bays, a Distinct Sulphur Smell Near the Lake

Sources differ on the exact length of Venus’s beach — figures range from 1.2 to 3 kilometres — but agree that breakwaters divide the shore into a series of smaller, narrower bays, the beach straightening and widening, up to roughly 200 metres in places, as it approaches the boundary with Saturn. This widest, most heavily visited section is also where hypothermal sulphurous mineral springs surface, captured and used for therapeutic showers — and the same proximity to the resort’s sulphur lake gives the sea air here a distinct, faintly sulphurous smell that visitors should expect rather than be surprised by. Toward the northern end, the shore narrows and turns stonier underfoot, a quieter stretch favoured by visitors who specifically want more privacy than the central section offers.

Sunbeds, umbrellas, changing cabins, and showers are available along organised sections, and water activities including banana boat and catamaran rides, scuba lessons, and pedal boats operate from the beach. A children’s amusement park sits near the Mangalia-side entrance to the resort, and the stretch of beach between Venus and neighbouring Saturn hosts a travelling circus each season alongside the well-known Liberty Parade, an adult-oriented event held annually on the same shared sand.

Plaja Venus, between Saturn and Cap Aurora, opened in 1972 as a resort whose hotels are almost entirely named after women, built during an era when it served as one of six marinas reserved for senior communist officials and allied Eastern Bloc visitors, with Ceaușescu’s own summer palace standing immediately next door. The beach itself runs one to three kilometres, divided by breakwaters into smaller bays, widest and most visited toward the Saturn boundary where sulphurous mineral springs surface, narrower and stonier toward the north. Recent reviews are genuinely divided between accounts of neglect and accounts of a clean, well-kept family beach — worth judging for yourself rather than assuming either extreme. Three kilometres north of Mangalia via DN39 or a short connection from Mangalia railway station.

Drive via DN39 from Constanța, or connect from Mangalia station. Walk the hotel names along the promenade if the pattern interests you. Judge the current state of the beach for yourself rather than trusting either set of reviews entirely.