The coastal resort was Romanian territory at that time. But in 1940 Bulgaria regained its possession with the help of Nazi Germany. The Bulgarians promised the Romanians “that the Queen’s heart, if you choose to leave it there instead of transporting it to a suitable place inside Romania, will be surrounded by all attributes of attention and respect.”

The Romanians didn’t trust their neighbours. So a day after the pact that reinstated Balchik to Bulgaria went into effect General Eugenio Svilenik, a personal aide, spirited the sarcophagus with the queen’s heart back to Romania.



The fruit of her love for Balchik remained behind though: the mesmerizing garden complex that she created to symbolised the unity of all the world religions, while at the same time being in harmony with nature.



The palace and its lush exotic gardens are an aesthetic accumulation of the symbols of different civilizations. They are an age-old dream come true: cultures and religions harmoniously existing together. The minaret of the small mosque rises close to a Roman-Arab bathhouse, Bulgarian-style chardaks, or verandas, and a Moorish courtyard. The huge earthenware pots were shipped from Morocco and the Hellenistic marble throne from Florence. The sea can be seen from everywhere.



The garden complex was and is a favourite among connoisseurs who spend their summer holidays in the villas adjacent to the former residence.

The town of Balchik, situated along a picturesque cove on Bulgaria’s northernmost Black Sea coast, has a history that dates back to ancient Greek times.

The White City as it is often called, was founded between the seventh and sixth centuries BC as a Greek colony. Its inhabitants in the fifth century BC were Ionians who called it Kmuni or Krounoi after the Greek word for springs, due to the abundance of karst springs in the area.

During the second century AD the settlement was renamed to Dionysopolis after the Greek god of wine and merrymaking. According to a popular explanation, this happened after a marble statue of Dionysus was cast ashore near the town. His effigy also stands on the silver and gold coins minted in Balchik under Byzantine rule.

Later, in Roman times, the town became a fortress and military base. One theory is that its present-day name is related to Boyar Balik, who ruled these lands in the fourteenth century, while another attributes it to the Turkic Gagauz word balikchik, meaning small town.

After the Crimean War (1853-1856), Balchik quickly flourished and grew into a major corn-trading centre. At the end of the Balkan Wars, the town was taken over by Romania.

Kent-born Romanian Queen Marie decided to have her summer residence built there, attracted to the area by its mild climate, diverse nature, the fascinating rock formations and the warm sea water.

Marie Alexandra Victoria was British Queen Victoria’s granddaughter and the daughter of a famous explorer, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and, thus, a distant relative of Bulgaria’s former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. She also had Russian aristocratic blood flowing in her veins through her mother, Maria Aleksandrovna, who initiated the future queen into the art of court intrigue but also kindled her passion for poetry and drawing.



Her childhood and youth travels to, among other places, Malta, Crete, Rhodes and Egypt supplied her with a wealth of impressions, which she later recreated in Balchik. She became influenced by the mysticism of the Middle East and the Orient, and visited Moorish monuments, including the Alhambra in Spain, elements of which she would later transfer to Balchik.

Dynastic interests necessitated the marriage of the 18-year-old English princess to Prince Ferdinand Hohenzollern, Romania’s future king. Queen Marie gave birth to three daughters – Elisabeth, Maria and Ileana, and three sons – Carol, Nicholas and Mircea, who died in infancy.

Marie’s first son Carol was wayward and adventurous. He produced films through his own cinema company and gladly engaged in hazardous love affairs, drinking binges, and gambling. For these reasons, he lost the throne in the 1930s and his five-year-old son Michael became king. Carol’s behaviour often caused violent rows with his brother Nicholas.

Although Marie’s official biographies say she died of internal haemorrhages after spending several months in hospitals, other sources claim it was during an argument between Carol and Nicholas that Marie perished. She died after being accidentally shot by her younger son while covering the elder one with her body.

Nobody knows for sure what exactly happened between the three of them. Some historians have accepted that the gun was fired by accident. The bullet hit Marie in the abdomen and after a few months of pain she passed away.

It was a cruel and ironic fate for a woman who professed peace, love, and understanding between religions and people.

Marie was the first Royal to declare herself to the Baha’i Faith. Baha’is believe in the unity of god, the unity of religions, and the unity of mankind. Their teaching preaches that different religions are the different stages of eternal history and the constant evolution of a single religion, divine and indivisible. For them Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed are the different manifestations of God, who originated depending on the historical conditions. If God is one, all religious conflicts become pointless. It was probably during Marie’s early journeys in the Orient that she got affected by Baha’ullah’s teachings.

With her associates, architects and gardeners, she built the Balchik palace and garden complex in this philosophy. In 1921, when Queen Marie visited Balchik for the first time, she fell in love with the cove at the mouth of Ak Bunar and decided to build her paradise here. Marie named her small-scale self-created world Tenha Yuva, or the Quiet Nest.



The arboretum, where yews and cacti rise in the sky, is named after Allah. The lower section of the park is called the Garden of Gethsemane.

The stone crosses with Church-Slavonic inscriptions were shipped from monasteries in Moldova. There are Muslim gravestones topped by carved turbans scattered here and there in the greenery. A majolica of Our Lady with the infant Jesus by an unknown artist is one of the masterpieces in the palace.

Employing Italian architects and builders Amerigo and Augustino, it took Marie two or three years to have the gardens and villa complex laid out and they completed it in 1927.

The unique beauty of the flower garden and arboretum is largely due to the work of Jules Jany, a Swiss, who until the revolution was the head gardener of Russian Emperor Nicholas II. He collected exotic species - mimosas, magnolias, roses, lilies, and cacti - and arranged them in floral compositions, a gardening masterpiece.

The stone commemorative plaque, dedicated by the Queen to Jany for helping her in the realisation of her gardens, can still be seen on the small chapel-like structure standing in the gardens’ grounds.



Many Romanian aristocrats and intellectuals also bought land and built houses in the area in the 1920s, making Balchik a significant cultural centre.

Among the religious symbols quietly standing in the lush vegetation of the palace is San Martin’s Column, the patron saint of the Romanian kings, with its intricately decorated marble pedestal, located in the small yard next to the office building.

The chapel, located at the lower end of the complex, was built as a modest but exquisite replica of a Christian temple in Cyprus by local masons from the so-called Balchik stone. A marble sarcophagus in which Marie’s heart was kept in a silver pot stood in the left corner to the entrance. On one of the walls there is a full-size mural of the queen and on the opposite wall is that of her daughter Iliana, who was also a donor of the church.



The site of the chapel was chosen near a curative spring. Elderly citizens of Balchik would often go there to fill pots with the healing water.

Water does have a prominent place in the palace gardens. Several fountains, ponds, and canals shed coolness in the garden. There is also a brook passing through it, going down several waterfalls to the Bridge of Sighs. It is often said that the garden was designed to resemble King Minos’s labyrinth on the island of Crete. Although they are in fact not so similar, there is indeed a surprise awaiting at every corner.

Some say that Balchik was Marie’s last love, after a lifetime of disappointments and searching for love. It certainly is a place to loose your heart to.

Practical Information:

How to get there: Balchik is located nearly 500 kilometres to the northeast of Sofia. Driving time takes between 6 and 7 hours. Varna, Bulgaria’s largest city is just under 50 kilometres south, or about 45 minutes away. Further south, the other major Bulgarian port city Burgas, is located about 180 kilomtres away. It takes about 2.5 hours by car to reach it.

Where to stay: There are seven villas that offer accommodation on the grounds of the complex, but they have to be reserved well in advance as space is limited (Reception: ++359-579-76-854). The complex is also ideal for various types of organised events – the Suyita Villa with its individual double rooms, located around an internal courtyard, provides a great place for team-building getaways. The garden’s numerous scenic spots have also caused the complex to gain popularity as a wedding venue in recent years.

The small private hotels in the town of Balchik, about a 15-minute walk to the gardens, are also an option if you can’t find accommodation in the complex. We tried and liked the Valeo Hotel (++359-579-77029), but there are many hotels along the shore, to satisfy most tastes and pockets.

What to Buy: At the street leading up to entrance of the complex that is away from the sea shore, you can acquire a magnificent specimen of a rare cactus or exotic plant from the special booths operated by the botanic garden employees

Where to Eat: There are also many restaurants on Balchik’s shore-side street, although none of them are truly impressive. The mussel farm Dalboka (++359-489-11377), near the village of Bulgarevo, is about 30 kilometres to the east, just past the town of Kavarna, and offers some of the tastiest and freshest seafood available on Bulgaria’s entire Black Sea coast.

Other Sites to Visit: Apart from the palace and garden complex, the town of Balchik does not have a great amount of additional interesting sites to offer to visitors. However, there are many spots nearby – two of them are Varna, which – beside being Bulgaria’s second largest city is perhaps its most pleasant one, and the Kaliakra Headland, just over 20 kilometres to the east, which is a nature reserve, where dolphins and cormorants can be observed and which boasts a medieval fortress and other remnants.

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