What if...?

I try to imagine what it would be like if there were no parks in the city where I live. I'm really surprised I didn't think of that before. I wonder if there are such cities in the world where there is no vegetation... and I can believe it exists, perhaps because of climatic conditions or local traditions.

These thoughts suddenly popped into my mind when I went for a walk in one of the parks that I really like in Bucharest, the city where I live. There are a few parks where I walk and that gives me the opportunity to describe the landscape and the beauties in my weekly #WednesdayWalk posts, as we are invited by @tattoodjay, who had this wonderful idea to initiate this community of walkers.

Every month of the year I walk through this park, Circus Park.

This is a not too big park, somewhat in the middle of the city, surrounded by buildings, busy and noisy streets, lots of cars and nervous people. It is like an oasis in the middle of a hot desert.

It's a place to relax and remember that there can be something other than the madness of the hectic city.

I think that's why this question arose, whether there are cities without parks. I feel the park is the most pleasant place to relax and I don't know what I could replace it with if it didn't exist.

Circus Park appears on my walking agenda every month not because of my passion for nature but mostly because of my wife's passion for her hairdresser. I am her companion who takes advantage of an hour of quiet walking with the camera in hand. This is the reason why this park regularly appears in my posts.

Walking through this park has several motivations for me, beyond its general beauty and resemblance (forced by my imagination) to the park (from London) in my favorite movie, Blow-up.

One of the reasons is the existence of a pond, right in the middle. This park was built about a century ago in the pit where a brick factory used to operate. Making bricks requires raw material clay that they found digging in that place... After the city developed and expanded this factory was no longer needed there, so it was dismantled and the existence of springs generated the filling of the pit with water and the appearance of this pond.

Where there is water there is life, isn't there? Life on earth began from water... I'm now referring to plants and animals, small water animals. Birds, first of all!

Such a great chance to see birds without having to travel hundreds of miles to a large lake or delta. What's more, these birds have become accustomed to the presence of humans and can be admired at close distances...

Another reason I like to walk here is to observe people, and fellow walkers or relax. I don't always manage to photograph them because I don't want to disturb them...

However, my interest turns to the birds enjoying the arrival of spring. They have been lucky, like the rest of us, to have a mild winter.

In the end, I have to thank my wife for growing her hair so fast so I can get to walk in this park far away from the neighborhood where we live.

The big attraction of the park and the main reason I love coming here is still underwater. This pond is home to a rare and unusual plant for Romania's climate. It is the Egyptian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) / (Nymphaea lotus), which blooms in summer. Until then I will continue my walks every month to see these wonders come to the surface!

More about the small lake, from a source more knowledgeable than me:

In the middle of the park is the "Natural Spring Lake", almost round in shape and 0.75 ha in size, near the shore of which grow Egyptian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) / (Nymphaea lotus), a flower declared a natural monument in 1931. This rare plant has a growing season that starts in the spring days, it grows vertiginously and covers the lake waters in summer with large leaves and beautifully colored flowers.
Another attraction of the lake is the European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis), which is not known how it got here, but which has multiplied considerably.
The herpetofauna is represented by three species of amphibians and three species of reptiles.

_Source

In the hope that someone will want to visit Bucharest, in the hope that they will get here and it will be summer, in the hope that they will want to see these wonderful lotuses, I leave here the location of the park on the map.

Traveler to the city where I live is what I've been doing for many years, that is, I try to show what is more interesting, more important, and not necessarily what is more beautiful in the city where I live. I don't bypass the ugly places or the sometimes uncivilized behavior that I try to explain through the history of these places but I focus especially on what I think a visitor would like to see when he arrives for the first time in Bucharest. Bucharest, the capital of Romania, a member country of the EU, is located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe. I'm going to use this tag #mycity and then put these places on the Pinmapple map for those who want to discover them more easily!

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