Botanical Gardens in Cluj

I took a lot of pictures at the Botanical Gardens yesterday and thought I would post a few of them.  Enjoy!

The gardens had some really nice paths kind of through woods-y areas.  I felt like I was in Pennsylvania or Maryland or some place like that.   -->

There also were all these statues scattered throughout the gardens.  They were really nice to see, but I don't think they were so old.  Looked like some kind of concrete castings - a little strange.  -->

And, then I began to wonder if I somehow was back in Arizona with this cactus garden!  Just like in the desert people want to have trees and water, there seems to be an odd obssession with the desert in very non-deserty areas.  -->

While most of the gardens were just mainly wandering around outside, there were a few greenhouses with Australian plants, palm trees, etc.  The one with palm trees completely reminded me of the Miss Rumphius (the lupin lady) book when she lived in Europe for a few years and would go to a green house in the winter!!!  -->

This is just a really cool picture (I think) that I took of a neat looking plant in the Australian greenhouse, I believe.  -->

And, finally, I leave you with....me!  I know the sun isn't at the best angle, but it is what it is.  I am in the Japanese garden section of the gardens.  It doesn't begin to compare to the Japanese gardens at the botanical garden in Fort Worth, but I am just generally surprised that there was a section like this at all!  -->

If you would like to learn a little more about the gardens here in Cluj, here are a few sites I found:
- http://www.cjnet.ro/t/gradinabotanica.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluj-Napoca_Botanical_Garden - really, wikipedia has everything!!!
- http://www.clujonline.com/places_of_interest/botanical_garden.htm