Balchik Beach Days

About a week after the Archaeology Camp I helped supervise the kids’ annual trip to the beach. This year we went to the town of Balchik, a town located underneath a shelf of cliffs near the town in which I saw the Rockfest a couple of months ago. The town itself is beautiful, being the location of a vast system of botanical gardens. Back in the 1800s, this region was owned by Romania, and Balchik was the summer home of the queen. She built the botanical gardens and castle there as a way to reconnect with nature and to develop her own spirituality. After Bulgaria gained control of the area, they preserved it and turned it into a sort of national park.

Throughout the gardens, religious symbolism abounds, especially in the grand centerpiece of the gardens – a perfectly kept tree-lined stream, and leading over one of the cliffs into a waterfall that leads into the sea. In fact, a major theme around the gardens is the flow of water, symbolizing the passage of time and our journey through life, not to mention its life giving properties. The garden was also home to a giant collection of cactii from around the world, a winery, and a ton of great examples of Bulgarian revival architecture. When viewed together there was a great feeling of being somewhere in the Mediterranean, perhaps on a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea...




The kids spent each morning on the tiny beach in Balchik (more a set of stairs leading into the water due to the rocky coastline, though at low tide there was a small strip of sand). They were given free access to their monthly stipend every day, which they promptly spent on ice cream, corn, chips, temporary tattoos, and a whole host of other things, within the first couple of days (they stayed for 10 days). This is actually pretty common for many of the younger kids at the orphanage. The children receive 30 leva every month. As soon as the money hits their pockets, they head out on a spending rampage, often spending most of the cash within a day on anything they can find and afford. Sometimes, the kids will fill a grocery basket with as much stuff as possible, and then have the store clerk remove anything they can’t afford. The theory behind this behavior is that anything not consumed within a day will be stolen from them.

Anyway, I think my time in Balchik was really energizing and gave me a good opportunity to hang out with the kids and also to get to know the staff a bit better. The kids had a blast swimming in the sea, exploring town, and playing games (not to mention being away from town for a bit). The botanical gardens has made my list of favorite places in Bulgaria (even if the road up to it is cluttered in useless souvenir stands). The place is so well preserved and well kept, and the beach area reminded me a bit of Bayshore Boulevard back in Tampa – a long stretch of sidewalk along a picturesque bay. The beach was lined with pleasant, little cafes and restaurants, and there was just an overall laid back vibe around the town that is hard to find on the Black Sea. I hope to make it back there sometime.



Balchik also served as a convenient starting point for my trip to Romania with friends, my first time out of the country, and my longest period of vacation yet (a week). More on that later.

Until next time...