The Jetpacker

Hyde Park is 350 aces — less than half of New York’s Central Park — of open space packed with a myriad of plant life, statues, memorials, horse trails and a lake called… the Serpentine River?  We don’t get it either.

A fun way of getting to Hyde Park is by taking the scenic route up Constitution Hill road.  They may as well name the culmination of this road “War Memorial Central”.  Near the end of the road, there’s a memorial to Commonwealth soldiers, and beyond that is the Wellington Arch in Hyde Park Corner.

Napoleon built the humongous Arch du Triomphe to celebrate his victories.  George IV built the much smaller Wellington Arch to celebrate his victories over Napoleon.  It really doesn’t scream “We won!”  It’s more of a “We sometimes won, but the point is we tried” monument.

There’s also the Royal Artillery Memorial, the New Zealand War Memorial and the Australian War Memorial.  I’m officially memorial-ed out.  The Grand Entrance to the park is at Hyde Park Corner, next to Apsley House.

On a nice, clear day, Hyde Park is a picturesque park that provides a breath of fresh air from the congested city.  It’s also a great place to relax and watch locals walk their dogs, feed the birds or watch runaway dogs chase the birds.

The soft dirt trail on the southern perimeter of the park is called Rotten Row, but really there’s not much rotten about it (except maybe some horse manure).

The park also houses a rose garden, the Diana Princess of Wales memorial and London’s Holocaust memorial.  The prize for most unusual tree in Hyde Park goes to the Weeping Beech, also called “the upside-down tree.” For a little more action, you can rent a boat or pay to go swimming in a partitioned section of the Serpentine.

If all that still sounds too uneventful, you can always head over to Speakers’ Corner where you can watch people engage in heated debates on anything from politics to religion to conspiracy theories to aliens.  Hey, London is expensive, so you can’t beat free entertainment, right?