King Michael I Park (Herăstrău Park, as I knew it as a child) is the largest park in Bucharest, Romania. The park was built between 1930 and 1935, around Lake Herăstrău, one of the lakes formed by the Colentina river. 

The name Herăstrău referred to the Herăstrău lake, and has its origin in a dialectal version of the word ferăstrău in standard Romanian, meaning saw or sawmill, referring to the water-powered sawmills that were once found on the Colentina river which flowed through it.

While reading about it for this post, I was surprised to find out that the area appears to have been inhabited during the Paleolithic by Neanderthals. Since then, it saw wooly rhinoceros and mammoths during the Ice Age, Dacian settlements, it was used for military exercises during the Russian occupation and later as a promenade by the Romanian elite, before it was opened to the public as a park, in May 1939.

For me, it was the place where my parents used to take me and my sister for walks, boat rides, riding bicycles and roller skating and where I continue to go whenever I am in the mood for some nature or want to meet friends at a terrace by the lake during the long summer days.

Hope you enjoy the visit! 😊

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