When I was little and lived with my grandmother in a remote village, lost among the hills, valleys, and forests, I was fascinated by the peasants' animals, horses, and cows, that returned alone from the fields in the evening. Every evening I saw these animals going to the same place, never straying, never changing their route.
Now, in my old age, I feel the same way as these animals, in that I have trails that I always do the same when I go for a walk.
This little memory is meant to be an excuse for my repeated walks in the biggest and most beautiful park in Bucharest. Herastrau Park!
I have told and shown many times the walks in this park but I realized that I have not shown the entrance to the park until now. This is it... a rather dull plaque inscribed with the name of the park. In the middle of the pathway leading to the lake is a column. This is inspired by the Infinity Column, a sculpture by Constantin Brancusi, the most famous Romanian sculptor.
Constantin Brâncuși (1876 – 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture.
Well, these repeating walks, recurring walks, are primarily useful for health, both bodily and mental. The need to walk at least 5 km a day as well as the need to look at a place where there are no cars, trams, and a lot of dust and gas from cars.
Although we walk on the same alleys, the same beaten paths, we never get bored, because every walk is unique after all. Something always happens that is different...
This time it was a windy walk on an early spring day.
This time, the special and unusual element was the lake in the middle of the park. It is not a deep lake, probably no more than 3 m deep. Most of the time its surface is shiny like a mirror but this time the wind made it have quite big waves.
The lake and the willows on the shore. The willows with their springy branches on which the first leaves are beginning to appear. An image I like very much.
The walk was along the paths by the lake but a few around the lake caught my attention, such as the walk of a cute dog, who seems to be afraid of the water. This is not obvious from the photos but I recognized his fear because in my youth I also had a Collie who never went near water (lake, sea, river...).
Instead, there are plenty of small boats on the lake. Some real boats, small boats with paddles operated by children, and many more boats that are actually seagulls.
Beyond the park is the city. The tallest buildings can be seen from afar. We see two kinds of buildings, two tall blocks, newly built office buildings, and the old imposing Scantee House, I think the last symbol of the USSR in the city. Here there is a printing house and the headquarters of many newspapers, now called the House of Free Press. The architecture is specific to the USSR and reminds of the old times when Romania, like almost half of Europe, was in the Russian zone of influence. The influence that we escaped, at first gradually and then suddenly, in 1989, with the Romanian Revolution.
Now there are troubled waters in Europe.
Russia has woken up and wants it back. I hope they don't succeed, but maybe we will succeed in demolishing the building. The memory!
In the middle of the park, we celebrate the European Union. This statue complex is made up of the bronze carved heads of the EU's "fathers", those who thought up and implemented this union. For Romania it is a blessing, without the EU we would be in Ukraine's situation.
For #WednesdayWalk by
