We flew to Varna from Sofia. Picking up a local guide and motorcoach, the group set off for sightseeing along the Black Sea coastline. In the Cold War era, Varna had the nickname in the West of the "Red Riviera". The city, on the Black Sea, was the site of many beach resorts visited by Eastern European vacationers who could not then travel to the West. A brief tour of Varna was included. Our visit to Bulgaria's Black Sea coast next led north to Balchik. The Balchik region had been transferred to Romania at the end of World War I and then transferred back to Bulgaria at the outset of World War II. Thus, Queen Marie of Romania built a coastal summer residence in Balchik in the 1920s. Balchik Palace and its adjoining Balchik Botanical Garden
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