Bulgaria's Balchik Palace Boasts BGN 1 M Profit

Novinite.com, 10 Sept. 2007

The palace at the coastal town of Balchik reported a profit of BGN 1 M for the summer of this year, a 100% increase over last year.
"The number of guests that visited the palace was twice as many as last year's 650,000," Toshko Gyaurov, director of the cultural institute, boasted.
Foreigners outnumbered by a large margin Bulgarian tourists and accounted for 70% of the total number of visitors.

The management announced plans to turn the palace into a year-round tourism destination, similar to the world-wide known Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna.

The construction of the Balchik palace began in 1924, when the region of Southern Dobrudzha was still in the hands of Romania. The wild and picturesque spot over the Balchik Gulf turned into reality the dreams of an eccentric Romanian queen - Marie of Edinburgh.

The queen's castle is located on the very coastline, bringing together elements of Mediterranean culture, Bulgaria's Revival and Oriental exoticness. The "Quiet Nest" villa is bordered by the queen's home at the one end and the chapel at the other. In between is a labyrinth of gardens, flowers, lakes, bridges and paths, linking into one organic whole the separate parts of the complex - an irrefutable proof of the owner's delicate flair for harmony and aesthetics and her never-ending search for beauty.

After Bulgaria restored its reign over Southern Dobrudzha a new beginning was given birth - a garden, which sprawls on the territory of the queen's former summer residency. The garden, one of Bulgaria's four botanical gardens, was named after her house, "The Palace", even though its design and selection of flowers was completely overhauled.

Bathing in sunlight most of the year, the garden is home to more than 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.