We know about three major Greek cities on the Romanian coastline, Histria, Callatis and Tomis. To our surprise when doing our research we find one more that we never heard about, Argamum. And it can be visited for free, who can resist that? The parking lot is easy to find with a nice map of the trails in the area and soon we are on our way to Cape Dolosman on which the ruin sit. We pass an area that is a mix of cultivated plots and marshland and there are some nice birds here as we slowly make our way up to the cape.
It is a longer than expected hike so we are happy when we see the first ruins, likely some walls. Argamum (Orgame) was the oldest Greek city on the Black sea coast mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus around 500 BC. It then survived, being destroyed and rebuilt a couple times, till the 7th century when it was abandoned due to the closure of the Gulf of Argamum.
As the gulf closed when we reach the water we are not looking at the Black Sea but at the Razim Lake which was created afterwards. From here we go up into the heart of the fortress.
As we walk up we keep wondering, where these cliffs also here during its heyday? In other words there had to be a harbor at water level so where is it?
As we climb to the top of the plateau we see more and more ruins especially of walls on the cliffside. As such we assume that the sea level might have been much higher previously, there is no way otherwise you would need walls in that direction.
The best preserved ruins in Argamum are those of the basilicas, there are three of them and they are quite similar in design and easily identifiable.
We continue exploring the trails and the ruins, a house there a basilica here and walls everywhere.
And then we exit the city via a different gate, the Western Gate, you can make a loop while visiting the ruins and we do just that. In fact the Western Gate is the best maintained and we explore it for a time before starting the hike back to the parking lot.
The trail passes through pastures with some horses in the distance. We really enjoy this hike and then we arrive at the car and it is time for the short drive to the next attraction, Enisala fortress.
