with this crazy-warm london weather (it was 27º yesterday & today!), i figured it would be a great day to spend wandering through london's parks. i opened my more-than-a-lil-bit dishevelled map of london to find that there's actually a tonne of 'green' in london - so it became more a case of deciding which ones i wanted to see. naturally, hyde park was a given....and seeing as they're so close to each other, i decided to walk through green park & st. james's park as well.
started the day in st. james's park, walking along the mall - up to buckingham palace. there were union jacks flying everywhere & the whole area was still dressed-up, post-royal wedding. there were street artists pitched along the mall, and people riding the london "barclays" bikes left, right and centre. i wonder how much they cost to hire... so much easier than walking around london...and easy enough, since i'm in one of the only countries (besides australia) that drives on the left-hand-side. gotta make the most of it while i can!
walking around the palace, st james's merges into green park. basically the same thing, i don't really see why they decided to make it a separate park....
in the north-west corner of the park is wellington's arch, dedicated to the duke of wellington - who helped fight that french napolean guy (ha) out of england. it's your typical big, fancy, completely useless arch, only this time with bronze-cast flying horses and the like on top. not gonna lie though, it's impressive.
nipped up from wellington arch to hyde park corner; the south-east corner of london's most famous park. i passed achille's statue, and the queen's gate - where about 400 roller-skaters rolled past me. there were even a few wheeling along huge subwoofers, blasting chemical brothers' tunes. def random, but it made me want to kick on some skates and join them (even though i'm a lil' challenged on roller-skates...).
being as deliciously hot & sunny as it was, i decided to collapse on the lush, green grass of hyde park and read my book (i'm currently two thirds of the way thru the millennium trilogy...)/sleep. best two hours of my london life...except that when i finally stood up again, i'd completely lost my sense of direction - somewhere in the middle of a 625 acre park. a few dodgy turns up the park's paths led me to the serpentine - the lake dividing hyde park in two. in fact, the half of the park that lies to the west of the serpentine is technically kensington gardens...but who cares about little details like that...
finished the day up with a walk through the italian gardens, in hyde park. very pretty with all the fountains flicking flecks of water around the gardens, catching the light of the setting sun. i was watching the second bridget jones' film the other day, and i'm pretty sure they filmed a scene here, in the italian gardens. it's no big surprise - it's a phenom backdrop.
all up, had the best day walking around in the spring sunshine. the only shame is that i only managed to get to three parks...ah well, that two hour chill session was 110% worth it.
S.
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| dieu et mon droit - sound familiar? |
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| the queen's gate, hyde park |
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| loving the ripped abs on achilles' armour |
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| nice photo until you realise the duck just shat |
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| dipping my toes in the princess diana memorial fountain |
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| slightly sad looking hand-less statue |
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| ...and then a nose-less one |
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| omnom giant jellybabies |
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| a 6-tonne horse head |
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| the marble arch of marble arch |
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| peter pan statue, hyde park |
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