A walk in the park

If you're pondering what to do between massive bouts of Easter gluttony, you know a bit about Bucharest, and you have a mild but futile urge to take back your health for an hour, your first instinct is to head to one of three parks: Tineretului, Cişmigiu, or Herăstrău.

We opted for the last. It has a bigger lake than Cişmigiu, more people at whom to gawk, and more cafes and restaurants to feed you.

The trouble is that, in keeping with newspaper reports of the latest real estate swindle involving the park, some developer always has to outdo his competitors, such that he goes and does something rash:





Ugh. They really are everywhere. Complete with the post-communist aesthetic of far too many Romanian architects!

Of course, there is always some injunction to be had in any park, and in Romania, a wag to take advantage of it:





Yes, it's the usual "Do not step on the grass!" sign. With the wag's helpful suggestion that one should smoke it instead.

Not far beyond, by the way, is a circle of large metal busts, celebrating all the "common Europe" visionaries of 1950 - not just Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, but Konrad Adenauer and several others. It's a little eerie to have them peer inwards at you, surrounding you in a circle. What have YOU done for Europe lately, hmm?

Further up the path, one finds Mother Nature has a sense of humor, too:





Despite the president's earlier effort to take a bite out of the stray dog population when he was mayor, they are blissfully waging guerrilla warfare unhampered. See? Sex really is politics. Even a dog knows that.



Romania
Herastrau
Hard Rock Cafe