Parks and gardens

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.