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Balchik - seaside resort and a town with past

by Tanichka on 06/09/2007 18:59   1 comment , 224 views
Categories: Places To See, History, Cultural Heritage
Tags: Balchik, Black Sea coast, Palace, Botanical Garden
Balchik is a Black Sea coast town in the Southern Dobruja area of northeastern Bulgaria. It is located in Dobrich Region and is 42 km northeast of Varna. The town sprawls scenically along hilly terraces descending from the Dobruja plateau to the sea.

After the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878, Balchik developed as centre of a rich agricultural region, wheat-exporting port, and district (okoliya) town, and later, as a major tourist destination with the beachfront resort of Albena to its south.

It features rich ethnic composition, gradually changing from mostly Gagauz and Turkish to predominantly Bulgarian. Between 1913-1915 and 1919-1940, Balchik was part of the territory of Romania. A large number of Turks, Tatars and Gypsies remained living in Balchik.

During Romania's administration, the Balchik Palace was the favorite summer residence of Queen Marie of Romania and her immediate family. The town was the site of Marie's Oriental villa, the place where her heart was kept, in accordance with her last wishes, until 1940 (when the Treaty of Craiova awarded the region back to Bulgaria). It was then moved to Romania.

Today, the Balchik Palace and the adjacent Balchik Botanical Garden are the town's most popular landmarks. Currently, two 18-hole golf courses are being developed north of town.

“Balchik Ridge”, in Antarctica, is named after this Bulgarian town.


Balchik Palace

The Balchik Palace (Bulgarian: Дворецът; Romanian: Castelul din Balcic) is a palace in the Bulgarian Black Sea town and resort of Balchik, in Southern Dobruja.

The official name of the Palace used to be the Quiet Nest Palace. It was constructed between 1926 and 1937, during the Romanian rule of the region, for the needs of Queen Marie of Romania.

The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas, a smoking hall, a wine cellar, a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, a chapel and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park, which is today a state-run botanical garden.





Architectural complex

Marie of Edinburgh, the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania, visited Balchik in 1921 and liked the location of the summer residence, ordering the vineyards, gardens and water mills of local citizens to be bought so a palace could be constructed at their place.

Balkan and Oriental motives were used in the construction of the palace that was carried out by Italian architects Augustino and Americo, while a florist was hired from Switzerland to arrange the park. The main building's extravagant minaret coexists with a Christian chapel, perfectly illustrating the queen's Bahá'í beliefs.

Today many of the former royal villas and other buildings of the complex are reorganized inside and used to accommodate tourists. Some of the older Bulgarian water mills have also been preserved and reconstructed as restaurants or tourist villas.



Botanical garden

In 1955, after the reincorporation of Southern Dobruja into Bulgaria with the Treaty of Craiova, the Balchik Botanical Garden got established at the place of the palace's park.

It has an area of 65,000 m² and accommodates 2000 plant species, belonging to 85 families and 200 genera. One of the garden's main attractions is the collection of large-sized cactus species, arranged outdoors on 1000 m² - the second of its kind in Europe after the one in Monaco.

Other notable species include the Metasequoia, the Para rubber tree and the Ginkgo.





Photos: BulgariaBlog.net

Info: Wikipedia
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