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I enjoyed Green Park's simplicity and rolling terrain. It is a small area, though, and I usually went through it on the way to somewhere else, not to it as a destination in itself. But it's certainly a wonderful way to get from Wellington Plaza to the tourist-heavy areas to the east, especially Buckingham Palace and, further on, Whitehall. And it's a more direct route, for those places at least, than the bustle of Piccadilly Street.
Here's the main path that makes that journey so simple, and a look at the handsome grove of trees on the Buckingham Palace end of the park:
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There are more photos of Green Park's lovely glades in this Flickr set.
St. James's* Park is a bit larger, but seems even bigger because of its more varied features. And if you're passing up Buckingham Palace (which I was willing to do after seeing it once) you need to go through it to get to the sights of Whitehall.
| Regarding my lack of interest in the rather pedestrian-looking Palace, I agree very much with the Mrs. Dalloway character quoted by Anna Quindlen in Imagined London: "A child with a box of bricks could have done better." |
But the park, as an entrance to the other attractions around it, is very much more enjoyable, visually. For instance, here are glimpses of the Horse Guards, with Whitehall beyond, and the Eye from the vantage point of St. James's lovely pond:
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Here's another look at the pond, and a couple of happy tourists in front of some of St. James's lovely flower beds:
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The flowers, and indeed all the horticulture, in each of London's parks, were lovely all the time I was there. I expect in January and February that might not be the case, but I don't know. They really know how to take care of flowers, and they take the time to do it right. Here's a shot of some odd but beautiful purple flowers that were all over the lawns in September, and a better look at the immaculately kept beds of St. James's near the Horse Guards Parade and memorial. (Hal has a neat extreme close-up of the purple flowers on his blog here.)
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More photos of St. James's are in this Flickr set.
*my inclination was to write St. James' Park, but the extra apostrophe-s is the way it's spelled on the official Royal Parks website, so I bow to their punctuation.
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