The Vrana Park-Museum will impress you with its magnificent collection of 821 species of trees, shrubs and grasses spread over an area of less than 100 hectares. It was created by Tsar Ferdinand for the royal family as a summer residence outside the city. 

Over the course of 40 years, a number of renowned landscape gardeners were involved in the creation of the park’s landscape. Until 1908, the head gardener was Vasil Georgiev, who undertook the largest-scale afforestation projects and laid out the first avenues and paths in the park – the Main Avenue, the Avenue of Plane Trees and others. 

The park’s main layout was designed by the Frenchman Jules Loche, who served as the first director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sofia from 1887 to 1908, and later became a professor at Versailles, Paris. 

From 1903 to 1908, the Austrian Johann Kelerer from the Munich Botanical Garden also worked in the park, designing and constructing the six rock gardens. The Tsar personally ordered their construction due to his great fondness for the alpine flora of the Bulgarian lands. 

The Czech Anton Kraus also worked as head gardener. Under his leadership, the majority of the park’s trees were planted. He laid the foundations for the spatial design of the park’s future remarkable open spaces. In 1911, the ‘Daalem’ rock garden was built, named after the famous botanical garden in Berlin. Among the many tree species that can still be found in the park today are oak, sequoia, fir, plane tree, tulip tree, lime, pine and others. 

At a later stage, the two lakes – one with waterfowl and the other with lotuses – were constructed. For a period of 10 years, a small branch of the Royal Zoological Garden in Sofia was located within the park. There were deer, two elephants, a camel, yaks, wading birds and pheasants. The king purchased two elephants from Hamburg, which he named Nal and Damanti, after the ancient Indian epic. As well as providing entertainment for the royal children, they were used for farm work.

The park is open to visitors today, and in the autumn it hosts the “Sofia Lights” festival, which creates a magical visual spectacle in the park.