I need something beautiful, I desperately need something beautiful and pure, I know it doesn't exist but I have to believe it does. Now, in the present, but especially in the future, I can't find something like that, so I take refuge in the past.
I was reminded of a walk at the end of September in a place specially built to be beautiful and to satisfy a queen's desire for beauty. The Queen is long gone, almost a hundred years but we can still enjoy what she left us.
Garden next to the Balchik Castle of Queen Maria of Romania.
This is a favorite place of ours that we have visited for over twenty years, every year. This year something special happened. We visited this little town on the Black Sea in Bulgaria five times! I don't say this as a brag, I just want to explain why Balchik and the former royal domain of Queen Maria of Romania is a recurring topic of my blogs.
A castle no bigger than a modest villa in our time, but enough to make a queen, who loved the sea, nature, and art, happy. She only enjoyed this place for a few years, but she allowed us to find beauty by the sea. It's a great place for a walk, especially if you're lucky enough not to have too many tourists around.
It was quiet and peaceful, a place to walk around and have long conversations with friends.
The sea beyond the fence and the flowers nearby, how beautiful!
In various places, inviting between the stones of the walls, flow in small cascades, as small springs.
The garden is full of springs and many of these were captured and transformed into larger waterfalls when the site was laid out by famous architects, at the beginning of the last century.
However hot it may be, the cascading waterfalls and the dense shade of the centuries-old trees make it a pleasant environment to be there, to relax, to visit, or to walk.
I most like a place called the Water Temple or, after an ancient Latin name, Nymphaeum.
A nymphaeum or nymphaion (Ancient Greek: νυμφαῖον, romanized: nymphaîon), in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. Source
I read from the Queen's memoirs that she especially loved this place, and celebrated her and her daughters' birthdays and anniversaries.
Situated in the middle of a long alleyway, the Water Temple is a great place for a short break after long walks. Another spring feeds a central pool. It's like a terrace from where you can look out over both the sea and the English Rose Garden.
It's a must, all visitors to the castle and the gardens will pass through there at some point, so it's a good place to earn some money with music...
The Black Sea is blue, very blue, when it's clear. You can't ignore this massive and quite silent presence.
The shadows and the coolness, the music and the murmur of the spring won't let you leave this place.
Something will push you to touch the cold stone of the columns where you imagine the queen did the same.
The old polished bench was probably the Queen's favorite spot. The Queen was a modern and emancipated woman and she certainly had her coffee and a cigarette here.
Because it was just a walk, we had to leave this temple of water, on that early fall day when both flowers and other small creatures are enjoying their all too short lives.
The steps then took us to the entrance of the English Garden, a place that was set up to remember Queen Mary's childhood.
Mary, born Marie Alexandra Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was a princess of Great Britain and Ireland, and granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
His parents were Alfred Ernest Albert Albert of Saxa-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh, and his mother, Maria Alexandrovna Romanova, Grand Duchess of Russia, the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
Maria spent her childhood and teenage years at Eastwell Park, the family home in Kent. Source
From the garden, we have another view of the Water Temple.
The roses were also towards the end but the beautiful fall weather prolonged their blooming.
When you arrive in the English garden there is a fight in everyone because there are two great temptations that you have to accommodate, the desire to walk in the shade and coolness, to look at the flowers, or...
Or cross the fence to the sea, another great place to walk.
It was always a hard choice.
Because of this, as it has always been hard to decide, we return to this place every year.
Sea and flowers!
In hard times, in ugly times, when hope is dying, a walk surrounded by the beauty of nature is very good. Even if this trip was two months ago, just looking at the photos and remembering is enough to make me feel much better and remind me...
"Life is beautiful!"
This whole story might not interest anyone but I hope you find something interesting in the photos. "Because, in the end, it's all about the photos."
Make a point of looking around and up and see what you can find to get shots of that otherwise you may miss.
This is one of the recommendations made by @tattoodjay for those who prefer walking and are used to sharing impressions and photos in his community, Wednesday Walk, every Wednesday, like this one today.
Hello @bluemoon
How are you? I hope the present can give you some beautiful moments, although I see that this place is so but so beautiful that it is worth going back to the past and remembering this walk. That queen knew what was the nicest place to have her castle. :))
The Queen was a modern woman and an artist. Romania was lucky to be ruled by a Western monarchy that brought order and modernity to a backward and disorderly country.
I'm glad to see that you got over the difficult period with the move and are starting to find time for our virtual place. I hope and wish you to be well where you are now and that this change will bring other changes for the better!
I had some health problems, actually with my wife who had to have an operation for a herniated disc, and now we are in recovery, she in bed, with her pains and I with the household chores. It would seem that the hard part has passed and slowly, slowly, we are reintegrating into our normal life.
It's a joy to see you again, @mipiano!
Thank you @bluemoon, and although I am responding just now to this comment I do wish your wife to recover quickly. Well, if it is now your turn to do the household chores, it can be time-consuming... but maybe you like it in the end and you decide to do everything from now by yourself even when your wife recovers completely :D
Haha...I do a lot of the housework. First of all I cook, I enjoy it. Thanks for the well wishes for my wife, she is really doing well and recovery is on track.
I love these kinds of places between the buildings and when there is water and such mysterious places... beautiful to walk around and with spectacular views of the sea. Thank you so much for this place, I love it!💗
My pleasure, I am very glad you liked it!
must have been so peaceful and calm exploring there so beautiful
Thanks for joining the Wednesday Walk
Have a good day
Thank you, @tattoodjay! That's right, a place where you feel good.
You can check out this post and your own profile on the map. Be part of the Worldmappin Community and join our Discord Channel to get in touch with other travelers, ask questions or just be updated on our latest features.
Thank you very much! I always feel good when I am noticed by the @qurator Team.