King Michael I Park, Bucharest (must see)

King Michael I Park (Romanian: Parcul "Regele Mihai I"), formerly Herăstrău Park (Romanian: Parcul Herăstrău), is a large park on the northern side of Bucharest, Romania, around Lake Herăstrău, one of the lakes formed by the Colentina River.

The area of the park has been inhabited since the Paleolithic, traces of settlements being found at the Herăstrău sand quarry, including flint tools made by the Mousterian culture, a culture generally associated with the Neanderthals. During the quaternary glaciation, the area was inhabited by large mammals such as the woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth, bones of the latter being found in the Herăstrău sand quarry.

During the Iron Age, a settlement of the first part of the Hallstatt era belonging to a pastoral population was located in Bordei-Herăstrău (the area between Herăstrău and Floreasca lakes, today part of the Herăstrău Park), which gives the name of the culture (Bordei-Herăstrău culture). In the Dacian settlements of Herăstrău, which has been dated, with the help of the coins, to the 1st century BC,archeologists found a treasure containing silver fibulae, silver spiral bracelets, a silver bowl, as well as Ancient Greek coins (from Tomis and Dyrrachium) along with Dacian imitations.

Prince of Wallachia Alexander Ypsilantis built an Ottoman-style pavilion on the banks of the Herăstrău Lake. The plain along the lake was used in 1831, during the Russian occupation, for military exercises by a joint force of the Wallachian and Russian militaries. By the mid-19th century, Herăstrău was the main promenade area used by the Romanian élite for walks.

In 1936, the work began for the creation of the National Park (Parcul Național) in Herăstrău. For this, several dozen squalid houses, as well as an industrial plant were expropriated and torn down, being replaced with alleys and trees, being finally open for the public in May 1939, becoming Bucharest's largest park.