Laid out in 1906 for the Romanian National Exhibition marking 40 years of King Carol I's reign, this large park south of the city centre survived where similar Communist-era projects flattened older quarters. The two ornamental lakes, the eclectic Casa Artelor pavilion, the small fortifications giulești ruin, and the Mausoleum of Romanian Heroes — a brutal 1963 monument that originally honoured Communist Party leaders before being repurposed in 1991 — are all here.
It is a quiet park, popular with families and joggers, and rarely visited by tourists. The Tehnical Museum of Dimitrie Leonida is at the southern edge, and the Bellu Cemetery (where Caragiale, Eminescu, and many other Romanian writers are buried) is a short walk further south. Enter from Piața Libertății on the north side.