So many other parks! There were lots, I know, that I didn't even get a chance to visit. But I thoroughly enjoyed all the ones I did see. I'm counting squares like Grosvenor as parks, too, since they certainly look the part, as you can see on the left below. Not to mention this lovely garden, on the right, at Lord's Cricket Ground.

But here are the other "official" parks I have photos for, as well: Bishop's Park • Regent's Park • Battersea Park

Bishop's Park was a delightful surprise that I stumbled upon while looking for the best way to get to Craven Cottage, where my sports class was going to see a football game. What gorgeous trees! And great views of the Thames. Here's the blog post that details my visit.

Battersea Park was no further from my flat than Hyde Park, but since it wasn't near the office I didn't get to visit it as often. I wish I'd had time to explore it more. I was only able to see the part right by the river, but it's a lot bigger than the section I saw. However, I was quite impressed with it on my few visits, and Henry went once on his own and got some great fall foliage shots. Here's one (there are more in the Flickr set):

Here are a couple of tantalizing glimpses of park features I wish I could have spent more time enjoying (the garden on the right was the sight of one of Hal's geocaches):

From the river, particularly, one of the park's most distinctive features is the Peace Pagoda (there are more shots of it, including some closeups of its interesting details, in the Flickr set.

Regent's Park is more the kind of park I expected to encounter in London than any of the others: manicured within an inch of its life, with formal paths and symmetrical gardens. I don't mean this as a disparagement; each style of park has its own charms. I loved how varied and distinct London's parks are —you could be blindfolded then placed in the middle of any of them and there's no way you could mistake where you were. Here are some typically Regent's Park images (you can tell you're on the north side of central London because of the nearness of the British Telecom tower):

For all its formalness, Regent's Park does have some wildness—take a look at this ringer for Tolkien's Old Man Willow:

More pictures of all of these parks can be found in the Flickr set.

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