Cișmigiu Gardens

Cișmigiu was created in the 1840s on the site of a marsh, drained and planted to a design by the German landscape gardener Wilhelm Friedrich Carl Meyer, who brought in trees from Vienna and laid out the paths and the artificial lake that still form the plan. It opened as Bucharest's first public garden and remains the most used, a green rectangle in the middle of the city with mature plane trees, willows over the water, and shaded benches occupied by chess and backgammon players who have been coming for decades. The Rotunda of Writers, a circle of stone busts of Romanian authors, stands under the trees. Rowing boats work the lake in summer and it freezes for skating in some winters. A hill at one end, built from the spoil of the excavation, carries paths and a small artificial grotto. It is an ordinary city park, and that is exactly its value.

History

The gardens replaced a pond called the Lake of Dura the merchant, popular for fishing from the 17th century. The decision was taken in 1846, and the horticulturist Wilhelm Friedrich Carl Meyer laid out new lanes, plantings and a Romantic landscape with rocks down to the lake before the opening on 23 September 1847; trees came from Gorj, Dâmbovița, Vienna and Brașov by 1851, electric lighting arrived in 1882, and after 1910 Friedrich Rebhuhn redesigned much of the park into its present form (Wikipedia, Cișmigiu Gardens).

Highlights

• The lake - rowing boats in summer, occasional skating in hard winters.
• The Rotunda of Writers - a circle of busts of Romanian authors.
• Old plane trees - mature planting from the original nineteenth-century scheme.
• Chess tables - long-standing players occupying the benches most days.

When to go

April to October for boats and shade; spring blossom and autumn colour are both good. Summer weekends fill the paths with families. Winter is bleak but the frozen lake is used when the ice holds.

Things to know

It is a working city park, not a botanical showpiece, and maintenance varies: paths can be worn and litter accumulates on busy weekends. Boat hire has short seasonal hours. The surrounding traffic noise is constant. There is little in the way of facilities beyond kiosks.

Nearby

The Romanian Athenaeum and Revoluției square are a short walk northeast.

Key facts