Drumul Taberei is a neighbourhood in Bucharest’s Sector 6, west of the city centre. The Drumul Taberei Park is very well laid out and designed (you can see a few photos below)—it was created during Ceaucescu’s time—but the reason my friend brought me there was a visit to the greenhouses. There is a series of seven pavillons with different plant environments: tropical, mediterranean, desert with cacti and succulents, equatorial, and one with palms. You don’t get to go in by yourself, but a guide will take you on a tour and tell you about the plants in the different pavillons.
The tour was in Romanian, so I needed my friend to translate for me. It was a cold and grey day, and although we avoided the rain showers, we were glad for the warmth and shelter from the wind in the glass houses. The tour guide tried to rush us through each Pavillon, but we resisted the artificial urgency and took our time. As you can see, I took way too many photos (the selection here is only a fraction of what I have); it was really quite nice.
I saw many plants I knew from Mexico in all of the greenhouses, and there were a lot of plants that are very well known as house plants. They had a banana plant that actually grew bananas, there were papaya fruits, lemons and mandarins, decorative hibiscus flowers, matured olive trees, many cacti and palms, orchids… and the guide was very knowledgable and had an answer to every question. I’ve always liked the “mother-in-law seat” cactus—just a funny image, and I remember my own mother laughing about it when I was young.
We stretched out the visit as much as we could without annoying the guide too much, but eventually it was time to leave. We walked through the park for a little while afterwards, we even found a little maze with hedges. Later we warmed up with a traditional Romanian meal and a beer. A nice day, thanks to my friend.
Very nice! Just your kind of thing. I can see that. Reminds me of the Botanical Gardens in MTL.!
c 🙂
I like how you resisted the tour guides “artificial urgency”! Some of those plants were quite amazing. One of them looked alien! I would not have thought to have found a banana tree in Romania!