London is my delight at Easter. This is the first Long Weekend holiday of the year; signal for a mass exodus out of town. This leaves the West End, London's tourist mecca, relatively uncluttered by traffic and the throng of tourists that are to be expected later in summer.
Spring in Park Lane! Now Londoners throw off their wintered look to face the world with a smile on their face and a tune on their lips..."We'll Gather Lilacs in the Spring Again". With a new jauntiness in their step they take to the Royal Parks to walk the dog, feed the ducks, row a boat, tryst their beloveds, and enjoy the scents and colours of the burgeoning Spring.
Hyde Park and the more formal Kensington Gardens which are overlooked by Kensington Palace; St.James Park opposite Buckingham Palace and the Royal Mews, and Green Park, overlooked by the Ritz Hotel, are the green lungs of London's West End, providing residents with gracious walkways that meander through meticulously maintained vistas of floral banks and shrubberies, impressive monuments such as the Albert Memorial, statuary, and peaceful stretches of water which double as the Queen's London Swanneries. These graceful royal birds are nesting now and in May will be hatching broods of up to 6 fluffy cygnets.
Hyde Park, the largest of the Royal Parks was originally acquired by Henry VIII for his stag hunting recreation between wives. It is a perfect pivotal point from which to enjoy an Easter and Spring Break in the Big Apple.
Since the opening of the Heathrow Express, London Airport is but 15 minutes away by rail link from Paddington Station just to the North of the Park. This area is full of accommodation possibilities ranging from modest guesthouses to 5 star deluxe hotels. The Paddington Hoteliers Association lists some 80 such possibilities from about $50. a night plus tax. I liked the privately owned Orchard House Hotel in Sussex Gardens, an elegant leafy avenue by Hyde Park. A double room costs about $100 U.S. plus 17.5% tax.
Hyde Park is at its most beautiful at Eastertime, its lawns richly caparisoned for the Spring festivals in a carpet of purple and yellow crocuses. Banks of golden daffodils, that floral harbinger of English Spring enshrined in the poetry of English Romantic William Wordsworth, scent the air with their subtle narcissus fragance.
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