As many of you will know from some of my recent reviews; I spent the Easter weekend in London. I had never been there before and so I was excited to see the city.

We stayed at the Melia Whitehouse Hotel, which is located by Regent's Park. As we were waiting for our rooms to be ready, we took a walk in the park. Whilst I am aware that there are many features in the park (more of this later). I will only talk about my walking experience and what I saw on my particular route on that particular day.

Now, being Welsh, it's clear to say I am used to walking around all the hills. Sometimes it's ok, other times it's a pain walking up hills when you can't be bothered. So imagine, my delight when I discovered that this park is all flat!! It meant that we could enjoy a calm easy walk without having to huff and puff up hills. Being flat, also means that the park is suitable for buggies and wheelchairs, and also there are no steps. The paths are also very wide.

Having come from the busy streets of London, I was surprised at how calm the park was. I could not believe that we were in the middle of the city as it was so quiet. I had imagined it to be crammed with people and not being able to relax. Although it was Easter weekend and it was slightly busy, I was amazed at how 'calm' the place seemed to be. I had thought that you wouldn't be able to 'relax' whilst walking as you would constantly have to look where you were going. Luckily it wasn't that busy, which was good.

I couldn't believe how massive the park was; it was absolutely huge. When I have head people say 'I need to take a walk in the park to clear my head' (in movies etc), I always thought well, a walk in a park in the middle of London isn't going to take long (as I thought that there wouldn't be much room to put a bit of 'countryside' in the middle of the city). How wrong was I ?! You could easily spend a whole day (or certainly a few hours walking round the park).

One good thing about the park is that it is free. Everywhere is so expensive in London, and so it was nice to be able to go somewhere without having to pay a hefty entrance fee. So if you a stuck for cash, this is definitely a 'cheap' thing to do in London.

The day we visited (Saturday), it was a very dull and cloudy day and perhaps that is the reason why the park was so quiet (at around 4.30pm) on this day. On a sunny day, I am sure it would be very busy and so beautiful.

The park is a royal park and so it does look very posh. You feel as though you are in a garden of one of the palaces. It's really lovely.

There were many things to look at such as statues and monuments with interesting bits of information on them. We also saw the 'open air theatre' although there was nothing on that day and so it was just an empty stand. There is also a lake and other water features however I only caught a small glimpse of the lake.

I would recommend wearing suitable shoes. I was wearing 'ballet pumps' - I didn't expect to walk far and that is why I wore them. However, my feet rubbed and I kept having to take my shoes off to get the chippings and stones out. When I got back to the hotel my feet were all dusty. So I would recommend wearing suitable shoes , e.g. trainers to walk in.

We walked from the entrance straight through to the opposite end (where London Zoo is). We did enquire about going to the zoo, although it was almost £30 each to go in (there were 6 of) and as there was only an hour or so left before closing time, we thought that it would be a waste of money. Actually we thought that £30 was very expensive for a whole day, never mind for an hour.

There were also a few cafés which we passed. I think that there are around 5 or 6 in total, however we didn't stop at any of them. Although, if you do visit, it's bearing in mind that you can get something to eat here.

I would definitely recommend a visit to this park.

Thanks for reading!
April 2012
Xdonzx / xd-o-n-z-x