The
first part of the concluding shooting of the film project
"The Secret Book" took place in Bulgaria, by the beginning of May 2003, in
the beautiful surrounding and within the walls of the Romanian
Queen Mary summer residence, in the city of Balchik, on the Black
Sea coast, on a forty kilometres north of Varna.
BALCHIK
The
exceptional view
on the city from the
sea,
inspired the great Ovid who exclamed
"O
white stone town, I salute thee for thy
inimitable
beauty!". The city was founded 
by
the
Ionian colonists in the 6-th century
BC.
The
Milesian colonists believed that the
goddess
of beauty, Aphrodite, was born
there
out of the sea foam. The spouting
karsts
springs gave the town its first name
Krunoi
(meaning spring or source in Old
Greek).
The next name was Dionysopolis. In the sixth century AC, the
city
was
destroyed by tide wave, but its inhabitants rebuild the settlement
and they also build a fortress on almost 200meters above the sea
level. During the Middle Ages the town was named after the
local feudal lord, Balik.
The
first destination in Balchik is of course, the quiet nest -
palace, former summer residence of Romanian Queen Mary. (The area
was part of Romaia during the period between 1913 and 1940) The
park of the pallace is a copy of the famous Cretan
labyrinth. Each stone for the church therefore was brought from
the island of Crete. There is also the stone garden, officialy
known as
the French Garden, the
one
with clipped box cones and geometric
beds.
Interspersed are stone thrones, seats, pillars and ornaments
collected by the Queen. The
Garden of Allah is the prettiest.
The attractive villa has
unusual;
addition – minaret, said that it was built for the Queen’s Mary's
Turkish lover – Hasan. The silver spring and the lanes paved
with crumbled stones are also very interesting. The Earth amphora
are brought from Spanish Morocco, the stone crosses and funeral
stones from Moldavia and Besarabia, and the marble throne from
Firenze.
The
Queen Maria died in 1938. Her own wish : her heart to be buried in
the
small chapel at the east side of the villa, was satisfied. After
re-conquering of Dobruzda by the Bulgarian army, the heart,
accompanied by military guard,
was
taken to Romania. The
main attraction of this place is the very beautiful Botanical
Garden, section of the University of Sofia. These gardens are with
surface from
about
35 ha, and they are surrounding the small summer palace of
the
Romanian
Queen Maria. They are placed on a steep, and they are descending
in a form of 6 terraces to the sea – it is supposed that there
is
one
palace for every child of the
Queen,
and her famous garden with more of 35 ha.The
gardens are “residences” of about 3.000 spices of plants,
trees, bushes, roses, all kind of flowers set up between
waterfalls, streams and ornamental canals.
From
these 3.000 plants spices, over 250 spices are cacti, and
according to this fact they are creating the second according for
its importance, collection in Europe.
