Has anybody else here been to Marie of Romania's summer palace at Balchik, now in Bulgaria? I went there for the first time last year and it's enchanting. It's not really a palace but a large white stone villa surrounded by other, smaller villas, set in the midst of woods and gardens, overlooking the Black Sea. It's a funny -- interesting, I mean, quirky -- mixture of the royal bourgeois style of the early 20th century and the Bohemian. Cozy but quirky.
The town of Balchik itself is now a very popular place for wealthy Russians to buy property and settle, consequently it has acquired a distinctly Russian feel, which I think is only too appropriate, since Marie was after all the daughter of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.
