Carol Park

Carol Park is one of the oldest public parks in Bucharest, laid out between 1900 and 1906 by French landscape architect Édouard Redont and inaugurated in 1906 for the General Romanian Exhibition, held to mark 40 years of King Carol I's reign. Its original area was around 36-41 hectares (sources vary slightly), on Filaret Hill in the city's 4th district. The construction required moving over 575,000 cubic meters of earth to dig the lake and shape the terrain. The park holds several heritage landmarks: the Heroes' Mausoleum (built 1962-1963 by architects Horia Maicu and Vasile Cucu, on the site of the former Palace of Arts/Military Museum, destroyed by a 1938 fire and the 1940 earthquake), the Roman Arenas (an open-air amphitheater seating about 5,000), Vlad the Impaler's Castle (a former water tower, a miniature replica of Poenari Citadel), and the "Dimitrie Leonida" Technical Museum, opened in 1909. The park's vegetation includes trees over 100 years old, such as plane trees, oaks, and chestnuts, some classified as remarkable trees. Between 1948 and 1991 the park was known as "Liberty Park," later reverting to its original name. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, placed here in 1923 in memory of soldiers killed in WWI, was moved to Mărășești in 1958 and replaced by the current mausoleum; it symbolically returned to the area only after 2006. The park includes an artificial lake of about 1 hectare and several kilometers of pathways. It is reached by public transport — bus and trolleybus stops are nearby, and the park is about 1.5 km from Union Square. Worth visiting for the exceptional density of historic landmarks packed into a relatively small area, and for its collection of classified centenary trees.