I'll say it again and again, I've found that my main activity lately is... walking. Like all of you, I am a man who loves to walk but, only now, I have realized that walking has become my main mode of relaxation. Slowly, slowly overtaking the other pleasures I still have.
The explanations are these, of course: Age, the need to do at least some semblance of sport, the pandemic. There's probably more but I can't identify it now.
Yesterday I had some work in the city center and from there I had to go to a friend's house. To get to her house, I had to cross a park. The park is called Cismigiu and is the oldest park in my city, Bucharest. Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
The Cismigiu Park was laid out in the 1850s, on the site of a swamp. The landscape gardener Wilhelm Mayer, former director of the Imperial Gardens in Vienna, was in charge of this work, so someone with a lot of experience. At that time the Roman state had not yet been formed, as it is now, and there were no local landscape specialists. So this park is a copy of the parks in Vienna and Paris. Initially, only rich people were allowed to walk in the park and even they had to follow some strict rules..., not to talk loud, not to talk dirty, not to litter. No commercial activities were allowed either.
These were very good rules and I regret very much that they are not respected today.
Like any self-respecting park, this one has a lake in the middle. So there is a lake in the middle of the city because the park is in the middle of the city.
It's not a big park, but it has a lot of things packed into it. Kiosks, playgrounds, many statues, a restaurant called Monte Carlo. A famous restaurant many years ago, when I was a kid. Back then, in the 1960s, it was a celebration if my parents took me for a walk in Cismigiu and if I went to the restaurant. Beyond all this, it is the natural beauty and landscape that make this park famous.
I walked through the park in quite a hurry on my way to my friend. However, once in the park, no matter how rushed you are and how fast you walk, it still means you are walking. I think so.
My point is that this post is not, was not intended as a park presentation. I shot a few photos because I couldn't miss this chance. Now I remembered about Wednesday's walk and this being the closest walk, in time, of course, I'm talking about it this week.
I realized that this challenge, #wednesdaywalk, launched by @tattoodjay is actually a photography challenge! So I'm leaving aside the story of the park and my reasons for being there and putting up the few photos I took.
I remember again about my childhood and this park. I was fascinated by the possibility of boating on the lake, but I was terribly afraid of the water, of the possibility that the boat would capsize and I would drown.
That's why I never went boating on this lake in Cismigiu Park, even though it seemed like the ultimate adventure.
Several years ago I happened to pass by the park and saw that the lake was out of water, they took the water out of the lake to make repairs to the shores.
Then I saw the bottom of the lake and understood that the lake was no more than a meter deep. So there would have been very little danger of drowning. So I missed the pleasure of boating on this lake. Of course, I could go boating now but there is no point. The pleasure I would have had as a child is not coming back.
HiveBloPoMo - Day 10
This is my attempt to post every day in November!
