Article

A Tour of Herastrau Park and the Village Museum in Bucharest

An enjoyable way to spend time with a friend is to walk through a park as you talk and take photos. Here's Herastrau Park in Bucharest, with photos and a short video.

Herastrau Park (Parcul Herăstrău in Romanian) is the largest park in Bucharest, located in the leafy northern part of the city. It is one of the most beautiful parks in the Romanian capital. Herastrau Park occupies 110 hectares of what used to be marshland before the area was drained in the 1930s. The park itself was opened in 1936. Beautiful trees – poplars, willows, maple trees, ash trees, linden trees -- surround a lake where you can go paddle boating. The alley around the lake is 6 km long. That’s about 3.7 miles. It’s a great distance for an hour and a half of leisurely walking, and you can also stop at the various restaurants and enjoy their fare indoors or out in the sun. See below for a few photos from my walk in the park yesterday, as well as a short video I made today by stitching together three very small clips.

Herastrau Park in Bucharest: A Short HD Video Clip

Herastrau Park in Bucharest, Romania

A word about video editing for small clips such as the one above. Basic editing is easy as ABC. You just need a video editor and, of course, a photo camera that records HD or full HD videos. Update November 23, 2020: Or well, 4K now. Here's one I recommend: the Panasonic Lumix ZS200 / TZ200 (released in 2018), with 15x optical zoom (24-360mm equivalent lens) at 20.1MP. I could have used some more zoom in my video as well, and it's certainly great in nature photos. This camera also comes with great lens stabilization in a Leica DC lens, so you can easily shoot video and also take good photos at a large magnification.

Panasonic Lumix ZS200 15X 20.1MP

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Pictures of Herastrau Park

Ion Jalea, Hercules Fighting the Centaur

The Village Museum in Bucharest

Next to Herastrau Park you’ll find The Village Museum. It is, in fact, a section of the park, covering 10 ha. It showcases over 300 buildings and other constructions removed from various locations in the country and reassembled here. The Village Museum was inaugurated in 1936, together with Herastrau Park. At the time, it was one of the first such open-air museums in the world. The Village Museum you see today materializes part of the vision of the Romanian sociologist Dimitrie Gusti, who imagined a section focusing on the future of the Romanian village as well. He also wanted peasants to live in the various houses on site, which did happen for a while. It wasn’t such a great idea after all, as it damaged some of the precious artefacts, carefully collected by members of the various teams of professor Gusti from all over Romania.

Enjoy some photos of the open-air museum below!

Pictures from the Village Museum

The Village Museum in Bucharest is quite picturesque. Many of its buildings, such as the partly-submerged bordeie, belong now to Romania’s past. Others, such as the 18^th-century wooden church from Maramures, can still be seen in Romania. Many of the houses, such as those seen in the larger photo, are common sights in Romanian villages. Besides such houses, the museum also has windmills and watermills, an inn, and other types of buildings. The village museum was damaged during WWII and in two fires (in 1992 and 2002), but is now ready again for visitors – and they do arrive, in good numbers, throughout the year. Locals also visit the museum often, as the organizers invite craftsmen during many of the holidays. There are also folk music ensembles during the summer.

Whenever I have visitors from abroad, I make sure to take them to Herastrau Park and the Village Museum. Many times when this happens, we also stop at one of my favorite Bucharest restaurants, the Hard Rock Cafe, which opened in Herastrau in January 2008.

While You're in Herastrau Park, Stop by the Hard Rock Cafe

Hope you’ll visit Bucharest and get to see the two attractions I briefly presented in this article. Oh, wait: the three attractions! :)

Till next time,

Mira

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What Is Your Favorite Place or Attraction in Romania? Have You Visited it Yet?

MiraJun 7, 2015

No, no mosquitoes or other small biting insects. They're spraying insecticide. Apparently they're also spraying stuff to combat ticks.

DerdriuMarrinerJun 4, 2015

Mira, Garden and museum tours are always popular with me. Places such as this Herastrau Park in Bucharest combine both so nicely in your descriptions and images!
So often draining wetlands results from commercial expansion. So it's refreshing to see such an end-result to this marshland's draining. Sometimes there's a persisting problem with insects, especially biting midges and mosquitoes? Is that a problem here? You wouldn't think from everyone's happy faces.

MiraFeb 11, 2014

Thank you, Derdriu. It's one of my favorite places in Bucharest. There's a sense of peace there, and you do feel like you got away from the city. I'd be curious to see similar museums in the US. I have seen an amazing one in Germany. I wonder now where those pictures are. It was a long time ago. It was an open-air museum like this one but the buildings were much larger, and what amazed me, even though I expected it, was to see that people and livestock lived under the same roof.

DerdriuMarrinerFeb 10, 2014

Mira, Such an outstanding park and open-air museum. The interiors recall for me Old World Wisconsin, an open air museum, and Milwaukee Public Museum's European Village, an indoor museum.
Your video was enjoyable and gives a nice panorama and real feel for the park.
I especially enjoy your writing which features nature.

MiraMay 2, 2013

I know. I never get tired of village house interiors, with all the rugs and decorative plates, the rustic furniture and looms, wonderful old stoves, and whitewashed walls :)

KathleenDuffyMay 2, 2013

Lovely article. I love that room in the museum - it's absolutely gorgeous! :)

MiraJan 24, 2013

Hi Elias, am so glad you enjoyed my page :), especially if you visited the museum and Romania. I hope I have done some justice to both. Look forward to your posts on Wizzley. Welcome!

EliasZanettiJan 24, 2013

I have visited the museum, it was a really interesting experience. What is more, you can find houses like those exhibited in the museum in the countryside only that people actually live inside! Thanks for the presentation, I enjoyed it!

MiraJan 20, 2013

Thank you, Glenda! :)

georgettejohnJan 20, 2013

The pictures are incredible and I enjoyed the article!

MiraDec 3, 2012

Wow, good to hear! I hope to write more on places in Romania in January or February :) I have photos, videos, and some books I want to read.

HollieTDec 3, 2012

This park looks beautiful, Mira, and I love the pictures of the interiors of the rooms from the village museum. I think Romania may be next on my bucket list.

MiraNov 17, 2012

Thank you, Katie! Soon enough they'll have craft fairs there for the holidays. I will try to go and photograph. :)

katiem2Nov 17, 2012

What a lovely tour, I enjoyed the pictures, they are so vivid and paint the illustrations to your story so well, felt as if I were there. :)K

MiraOct 10, 2012

zteve: Parks are wonderful in a city, aren't they?
BrendaReeves: So where are the videos? :-) But then again, I, too, had my Lumix camera for a while and didn't get into video until recently. :)

BrendaReevesSep 4, 2012

What a beautiful place. I wish I could go for a walk with you. I bought that camera about five months ago. I guess I had better learn how to use it.

GuestAug 19, 2012

Really interesting page! It looks a wonderful park to just stroll and relax in just the sort of place I like!

MiraAug 19, 2012

Thanks, Tolovaj. I want to see so much more of Eastern Europe! Do post if you travel somewhere nice :-). At the moment I travel mostly to downtown Bucharest :-) -- thought I should film some HD videos while at it, read more about the history and architecture of various parts of Bucharest, and post some articles here.

TolovajAug 19, 2012

I didn't have a chance to visit Romania yet, but I have been in some countries around and I can confirm this part of Europe offers many jewels just waiting to be discovered.
Beautiful presentation!

MiraAug 14, 2012

Hi Ragtimelil, thanks for visiting virtually :). Hope you get to come over at some point. Yes, there are dogs in the park. I'll try to film more dogs next time I go for a walk -- great idea, because they are all either impressively beautiful or really cute :-)

RagtimelilAug 12, 2012

I'd love to visit someday. Beautiful park. I was watching the video (very nice) and thought, "where are the dogs?" Just then, a dog appeared. Ha.
I love the interior shots. Is that a loom in one? I'd love to see that!