On March 1, Romanian kids give mărțișor, small red-and-white charms on a string, to their teachers, mothers and grandmothers, and stalls selling them pop up all over town. It's the city's first sign of spring, and by April the parks are in blossom. Here's what we checked, from the Peasant Museum's Mărțișor fair to the lake and Japanese Garden at Herăstrău.
A courtyard fair of mărțișoare, the red-and-white tokens Romanians give each other on March 1 at the start of spring. Students, artists, craftspeople, designers and architects make and sell them, and the museum has run the fair for a quarter century.
Kids can try something sweet between stalls. It suits kids who enjoy browsing a market and picking out small handmade things.
Hanami is the Japanese custom of gathering under the cherry blossoms. The Embassy of Japan marks it each year with a day in the Japanese Garden of Herăstrău Park, mixing Japanese crafts and culture with the trees in bloom.
It suits curious kids who like making things with their hands and can enjoy quieter moments between the busier stations.
An ethnographic museum in a Neo-Romanian building, holding more than 100,000 objects of village life: folk costumes, textiles and rugs, painted icons and pottery. The star is a whole peasant house from Gorj County rebuilt indoors, with a platform for peering into its attic.
A basement room keeps a wry display of Communist-era leftovers, and a wooden church brought from Bejan, in Hunedoara, stands in the inner courtyard.
An open-air village on the shore of Lake Herăstrău, made of 62 farmsteads moved here from regions across Romania: 40 houses, three churches and 15 craft workshops and technical installations, from the 17th to the early 20th century.
Kids walk 9 hectares of lanes, look into furnished peasant homes and compare gates and roofs between regions. The museum also hosts a folk craftsmen's fair and a winter customs festival.
The University of Bucharest's botanical garden covers 18 hectares of themed outdoor gardens: a rose garden, an Italian garden, a hill of conifers, and beds of Mediterranean and medicinal plants.
The exhibition greenhouses hold a tall palm house, cacti, orchids, a vanilla vine and a pool of tropical water lilies. A botanical museum sits on the grounds, and a café faces a wide lawn beside grassy hills made for exploring.
Herăstrău Park covers about 200 hectares around a 74-hectare lake, where pontoons rent rowing boats and hydrobikes and kayakers paddle out. Away from the water there are children's playgrounds, an adventure park with trails, skate areas, bike rental and tennis courts.
The Japanese Garden and Rose Island are quieter corners, and the open-air Village Museum, with traditional houses from across Romania, sits inside the park.
On March 1, Romanian kids give mărțișor, small red-and-white charms on a string, to their teachers, mothers and grandmothers, and stalls selling them pop up all over town. It's the city's first sign of spring, and by April the parks are in blossom. Here's what we checked, from the Peasant Museum's Mărțișor fair to the lake and Japanese Garden at Herăstrău.
A courtyard fair of mărțișoare, the red-and-white tokens Romanians give each other on March 1 at the start of spring. Students, artists, craftspeople, designers and architects make and sell them, and the museum has run the fair for a quarter century.
Kids can try something sweet between stalls. It suits kids who enjoy browsing a market and picking out small handmade things.
Hanami is the Japanese custom of gathering under the cherry blossoms. The Embassy of Japan marks it each year with a day in the Japanese Garden of Herăstrău Park, mixing Japanese crafts and culture with the trees in bloom.
It suits curious kids who like making things with their hands and can enjoy quieter moments between the busier stations.
An ethnographic museum in a Neo-Romanian building, holding more than 100,000 objects of village life: folk costumes, textiles and rugs, painted icons and pottery. The star is a whole peasant house from Gorj County rebuilt indoors, with a platform for peering into its attic.
A basement room keeps a wry display of Communist-era leftovers, and a wooden church brought from Bejan, in Hunedoara, stands in the inner courtyard.
An open-air village on the shore of Lake Herăstrău, made of 62 farmsteads moved here from regions across Romania: 40 houses, three churches and 15 craft workshops and technical installations, from the 17th to the early 20th century.
Kids walk 9 hectares of lanes, look into furnished peasant homes and compare gates and roofs between regions. The museum also hosts a folk craftsmen's fair and a winter customs festival.
The University of Bucharest's botanical garden covers 18 hectares of themed outdoor gardens: a rose garden, an Italian garden, a hill of conifers, and beds of Mediterranean and medicinal plants.
The exhibition greenhouses hold a tall palm house, cacti, orchids, a vanilla vine and a pool of tropical water lilies. A botanical museum sits on the grounds, and a café faces a wide lawn beside grassy hills made for exploring.
Herăstrău Park covers about 200 hectares around a 74-hectare lake, where pontoons rent rowing boats and hydrobikes and kayakers paddle out. Away from the water there are children's playgrounds, an adventure park with trails, skate areas, bike rental and tennis courts.
The Japanese Garden and Rose Island are quieter corners, and the open-air Village Museum, with traditional houses from across Romania, sits inside the park.
