Hyde Park : London

After you've used your Oyster card to catch the tube to Harrods, you can walk back through Knightsbridge to glorious Hyde Park and soak up some sun lazing about next to the Serpentine, or grab a yummy meal, coffee or glass of bubbles at The Serpentine Bar & Kitchen.

Hyde Park, together with adjacent Kensington Gardens, covers around 625 acres in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world.  It really is the lungs of London.

In 1536 Henry VIII acquired the park from the canons of Westminster Abbey, but he had it fenced and kept it as a private deer and hunting park ("It's good to be the King!"), and in 1637 Charles I opened the park to the general public.

Oh Henry, you had it so good!  Your wives?  Not so much.

You can do a lot in Hyde Park, or you can do nothing much at all.  It's a lovely, safe, well kept place for lazing around with a newspaper, or you can get some friends together and play football, touch rugby, cricket, softball or have a game of Frisbee.

You can hire a Boris Bike at various locations throughout the park, and if you're feeling cashed up, you can hire a horse from Hyde Park Stables.

A lovely, though expensive, way to spend an hour.

The horse rides are taken out along the tan around the edge of the park, and if you're a horse nut like me, but don't have the cash to hire a horse (not cheap, one hour starts at £64), just walk along the tan and you'll see people trotting and cantering past, or mounted police schooling their horses on the grass.  If you wander through at the right time you'll often see the Mounted Calvary going through their paces from the Hyde Park Barracks.

Household Cavalry Coming Through!

Take a picnic, enjoy the day in the fresh air, but remember one thing, those lovely deck chairs you see in the sunny spots aren't free!  I discovered this one day as I plonked myself down with my Stieg Larsson and was just getting comfortable when the owner of the chairs came up and asked for the rental money.  Um, no, sorry.  I'll sit on the grass for free.

Oops, not free!