The town, owner to the second biggest Botanical Garden in the world travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

At 17 km from Kavarna and 30 km north of Varna, is situated the Balchik city. One of the most beautiful cities on the Bulgarian Black sea coast. Balchik is a small seaside town in Northern Bulgaria which combines the romance of its steep streets with the beauty of the sea. It is one of the oldest European towns. It was founded more than 2600 years ago by Ionian colonists on the ruins of quite earlier settlement known under the name of Krouni. The old town is situated stands in tiers on the slopes of an ancient fault. For a long time it has been known as the White Town. The old houses and cobblestone lanes are the “trade mark” , the brand of the White Town. The remarkable location of Balchik-on terraces - above the picturesque bay, the bright white heights, sculptured by weather and wind, which surrounded it from all sides, the romantic, buried in greenery an dashed meandering at the seashore - all this fairy site - scene of stone, sun, meerschaum and flowers create the magic atmosphere of this oasis of piece. The area that features most tourists is the
Queen’s Palace with the botanical garden, and this is the biggest botanical garden in the Balkans and the second in the world. The garden features seldom plants.

The town is famous for the largest and richest botanical garden on the Balkans and the palace to Queen Maria of Romania (1924). The palace complex consists of a central palace with a high tower, many buildings in a style typical for that time, a park with terraces, lanes and paths, stone alcoves with marvellous columns and sea view.
It was constructed between 1926 and 1937, during the Romanian rule of the region to serve as summer residence to Queen Maria of Romania. The authors of the construction design are Italian architects. The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas originally meant to host Romanian aristocrats, a smoking hall, a wine cellar, a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, a chapel, which still keeps the heart of the queen after her will, a beautiful stone throne under an old tree where Queen Maria loved to watch the sunset, and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park that is today a state-run botanical garden.

Apart from the palace, the palace complex and the botanical garden - the biggest and most diverse in the Balkans. The park itself is an imitation of the Famous Cretan labyrinth, with each stone of the church being brought from the very island of Crete. Most people claim that the Garden of Allah is the prettiest, though no doubt, the Silver Well, the alleys paved with millstones and the huge earthen jars, brought from Morocco, are also breathtaking. The Balchik Botanical Garden was established at the place of the palace’s park in 1955, after the return of Southern Dobrudzha to Bulgaria with the Treaty of Craiova. It has an area of 65,000 m 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 m, the second of its kind in Europe after the one in Monaco.

More than 3,000 rare and exotic plants, including more than 200 tree species, fabulous flowers and a unique collection of about 250 cactus species (the latter representing Europe’s second most important collection) grow currently in the Bulgarian botanic garden. Thus, it is not surprising that the park was included as a part of the teaching facilities of the Sofia University in 1955. Besides students, the complex welcomes more than half a million tourists per summer season.

In the garden you can see some exotic plants such as: candy tree, paper tree, ancient Ginkgo biloba, the resurrected Metasequoia glyptostroboides, sand lily, olives and many others. You will enter a world of bright colors, blooms, trees and bushes. Collections of plant species from all over the worlds are grown on an area of about 16 acres. One of the biggest attractions is the collection of large sized cacti species grown in an open area. The complex welcomes not only students but also more than half a million tourists per summer season.