From the University it is about a half hour walk to the Botanical Garden, a place we passed by multiple times but never entered. Today we have some time so we finally decide to explore it. Luckily it is open on a Monday but not everything, all museums and greenhouses are closed while the ticket price is still the same…
We turn right from the entrance in an area that seems devoid of people. We find a bench and sit a while while watching the squirrels in the trees and the birds singing and enjoying the solitude.
We continue exploring the area and even find what looks to be an old building in the middle of the park, it actually is a university building used for research, quite interesting.
Opposite the building is a small-ish water feature which we approach to enjoy the cooling effect (it is quite hot again). To our surprise it is full of fish of different sizes, maybe this is where the biology students do their research? Or fish?
There are also a few outdoor art exhibits in the area and some shady, yay, promenades where we walk enjoying the old trees and the shade of course.
To our surprise part of the Botanical Garden is near an industrial looking complex. Likely it is the heating complex for the student housing but maybe it was not the best place to place it? In this area we also find the small museum that is closed today, too bad.
There are many maintained gardens as befits any Botanical Garden but it is late in the season and many of them are barely recognizable as such as the flowers and herbs are gone.
The greenhouses are also closed which we find weird, how difficult would it have been to open them in the morning with the park and close them in the evening? But no, it is Monday so they have to be closed….
At least the refreshment kiosk is open it is time to get some iced coffee and profiterol. It is a slightly unusual profiterol which the vendor even warns us about but it is good enough for hungry people like us.
Returning towards the entrance we find a few more water features including the central lake which has quite a few ducks and a couple cormorants on it. This is the only area with other visitors, a loud school group that we do our best to avoid before leaving the gardens. We have one more stop planned for today, an area where we stayed for one year while studying in Bucharest.
