In the southern suburb of Pristava — locally known as Rafut — an early 20th-century park survives in surprisingly good shape. Baron Anton Lasciac, an architect who had spent decades working in Cairo for the Egyptian khedive, retired here in 1908 and built himself a villa surrounded by exotic plantings: palms, cypresses, magnolias, and a small Moorish pavilion.
The villa is closed, but the park is freely accessible. It is a quiet, off-the-tourist-radar spot, particularly atmospheric on a hot afternoon when the air under the old trees is twenty degrees cooler than out on the road.