- Balchik Palace
The Balchik Palace ( _bg. Дворец в Балчик, "Dvorets v Balchik"; _ro. Castelul din Balcic) is a palace in the
Bulgaria nBlack Sea town and resort ofBalchik inSouthern Dobruja . The official name of the palace was the Quiet Nest Palace. It was constructed between 1926 and 1937, during theRomania n control of the region, for the needs of Queen Marie of Romania. The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas, a smoking hall, awine cellar , a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, a chapel and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park that 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 fromSwitzerland 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 1940, after the reincopration of Southern Dobruja in
Bulgaria with theTreaty of Craiova , the Balchik Botanical Garden was 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-sizedcactus species arranged outdoors on 1000 m², the second of its kind inEurope after the one inMonaco . Other notable species include theMetasequoia , thePara rubber tree and theGinkgo .Trivia
Francis Ford Coppola spent 11 days at the palace shooting scenes ofYouth Without Youth .External links
Palace
* [http://www.dvoreca.com/ Dvoreca.com, official website] (in Bulgarian and English)
* [http://www.balchik.info/bg/castle/castle.php Gallery of the Balchik Palace at Balchik.info]
* [http://www.journey.bg/bulgaria/bulgaria.php?guide=1783&city=1816 Balchik Palace at Journey.bg] (in Bulgarian)
* [http://miscarea.com/balcic.html Old images of the Balchik Palace] (in Romanian)
* [http://www.jurnalul.ro/modules/pnCPG/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=68 Gallery of Balchik] at the "Jurnalul Naţional " website (mostly covering the palace; in Romanian)
* [http://www.pbase.com/ngruev/baltchik Nikola Gruev's gallery of the palace]Botanical garden
* [http://www.balchik.info/en/botanic/botanic.htm Balchik Botanical Garden at Balchik.info] (in Bulgarian and English)
* [http://gradinata.hit.bg/ "Save the Balchik Botanical Garden!" campaign] (in Bulgarian)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.