Regina Maria Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(small)
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REGINA MARIA
This cache can be found on the promenade in Balchik just .5km west of Queen Marie's Palace. It is accessible on foot or by cycle, motor vehicles are not allowed on the promenade. There is a free car park approx. 800m from the cache.
Balchik is a small seaside resort, which blends a working harbour with an expanding leisure marina. The waterfront supports numerous bars and restaurants.
The Balchik Palace (Dvoreca) is a palace in the Bulgarian Black Sea town and resort of Balchik in Southern Dobruja. The official name of the palace was the Quiet Nest Palace. It was constructed as a summer residence between 1926 and 1937, during the Romanian control of the region, for the needs of Queen Marie of Romania. Marie of Edinburgh, the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania, visited Balchik in 1921 and liked the location of the summer residence, ordering the vineyards, gardens and water mills of local citizens to be bought so a palace could be constructed at their place. Balkan and Oriental motives were used in the construction of the palace that was carried out by Italian architects Augustino and Americo, while a florist was hired from Switzerland to arrange the park. The main building's extravagant minaret coexists with a Christian chapel, perfectly illustrating the queen's Bahá'í beliefs.
The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas, a smoking hall, a wine cellar, a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, a chapel and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park that is today a state-run botanical garden used to accommodate tourists. Some of the older Bulgarian water mills have also been preserved and reconstructed as restaurants or tourist villas.
Botanical garden:-
In 1940, after the reincopration of Southern Dobruja in Bulgaria with the Treaty of Craiova, the Balchik Botanical Garden was established at the place of the palace's park. It has an area of 65,000 m² 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 m², the second of its kind in Europe after the one in Monaco. Other notable species include the Metasequoia, the Para rubber tree and the Ginkgo.
There is an entry fee to the palace & gardens but it is not necesarry to visit the palace or gardens to access this cache.
Congratulations Marisplume for being FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ng gur irel fgneg bs n fbyvq jnyy, K znexf gur fcbg.
CYRNFR ZNXR FHER GUNG GUR 'K' VF PNERSHYYL CYNPRQ ORSBER LBH YRNIR NF JVGUBHG VG GUVF PNPUR PNA OR UNEQ GB SVAQ.