Balchik Palace

Worth a detour

Between 1924 and 1937 Queen Marie of Romania built herself a run of low white villas stepping down the cliff at Balchik — the town was Romanian then and stayed so until 1940. The main house carries a minaret, with a Christian chapel a few steps away. The terraces below are now a botanical garden with one of the largest outdoor cactus collections in Europe. Come early or out of season.

Story

Background

Southern Dobruja passed to Romania in 1913 and returned to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova in 1940. In that window Queen Marie, who had taken to the place on sight, had a summer residence built here from 1924 onwards, finished around 1937. It is not one palace but a scatter of small buildings following the slope to the water, mixing Bulgarian, Byzantine, Moorish and Transylvanian motifs. The minaret beside the chapel is not a joke or a folly — the queen's religious sympathies were unusually wide, and the buildings say so.

The planting began with the house: a Swiss botanist started work in 1926, and after 1940 the terraces were formally turned into a botanical garden. The cactus collection outdoors is generally reckoned the second largest in Europe; there are also lily canals, roses, and — which matters here in July — a great deal of shade.

Hours stretch with the season, from eight in the morning to eight at night in high summer, down to 08:30–17:00 between November and March. Adults pay about €10, children between six and eighteen about €3, and there is a family ticket. It is busy from mid-morning in summer, with coaches up from Albena and Golden Sands; the first hour after opening belongs to whoever bothered to get there.