Most of the parks and gardens of Romania are legacies of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th: public gardens drawn by landscape architects brought from France and Austria, the spa parks of the resorts, the rose gardens and botanical gardens of the university towns, but also the dendrological parks around castles and manor houses, planted by noble families with species brought from other continents. Many went through decades of neglect and are being restored one by one; most can be visited freely, and the estate parks are included in the castle ticket.
The Rose Park in Timișoara, on the bank of the Bega, is the best-known rose garden in the country. At the gates of Bucharest, Mogoșoaia Palace has its Italian garden and the English park laid out by Martha Bibescu, while on the Mureș valley the historic park of the Royal Castle of Săvârșin is visited with a guide. The dendrological parks of Károlyi Castle in Carei and Sturdza Castle of Miclăușeni have trees more than two centuries old, and at Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni you stroll among fountains with the Bucegi Mountains behind.
Top 100The Neo-Romanian summer residence of the 'Nabob' Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, with a ballroom lined with coats of arms, a terrace facing the Bucegi Mountains and the Nevermore Academy exterior from Wednesday.
Top 100Eclectic castle with towers and a moat, rebuilt in 1894–1896 by the Károlyi family in the middle of a three-century-old dendrological park; inside, period interiors, wax figures and African trophies.
Top 100The Brâncovenesc palace built by Constantin Brâncoveanu in 1702, with its carved stone loggia, the old kitchen, a church from 1688 and a large lakeside park, 15 km from the centre of Bucharest.
Top 100A Neo-Gothic palace built by George and Maria Sturdza between 1880 and 1904, its façades covered in coats of arms and stone tracery, set in an old park with ponds; reopened in 2026 after a major restoration.
Top 100The Royal Family's Neoclassical residence in the Mureș valley, with a historic park open for guided tours and the Royal Village, where King Michael's garage is now a car museum; open at weekends, May–October.
The Roman Catholic bishops' residence, built in 1762–1777 by Franz Anton Hillebrandt, is Romania's largest Baroque palace; today it hosts church art exhibitions, and the garden is open daily.
Bucharest's oldest public park, laid out from 1847 in the landscape style around a lake, with shady avenues, the Writers' Rotunda and romantic stone corners, right in the city centre.
A private Italian-style garden at Banpotoc, near Deva: travertine paths, geometrically clipped hedges, fountains and vases brought from Italy, over almost 3.5 hectares, open to the public since 2018.
Bucharest's largest park, on the shore of Lake Herăstrău: nearly 190 hectares of strolling paths, the Japanese Garden, Caryatid Alley and Rose Island.
A romantic park of nearly 100 hectares designed by the Frenchman Édouard Redont and inaugurated in 1903, with a lake, a suspension bridge, the Enchanted Castle and the zoo, in the south of Craiova.
Timișoara's historic rose garden, laid out in 1929–1934: rose beds edged with clipped hedges, white wooden pergolas and an open-air summer theatre, in a park of nearly four hectares.
A botanical garden of almost 24 hectares in the former park of the Wesselényi castle: a Japanese garden with lakes and pavilions, greenhouses with palms and cacti, aquariums and thousands of tulips in spring.
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