L&R 2014 – Hyde Park

Part of my study abroad trip to London and Rome in September is a series of blog posts about the things we see and do while on the trip. This is the fourth of five required posts about London and is about a street or neighborhood and it’s connection to literature, in my case it is about going to Hyde Park.

I don’t know if I can truly say that I saw much of Hyde Park. I had just a scant hour or so to stroll through it between scheduled stops.

I came into the park through Speakers’ Corner, a site that I’d read about before for its history of protests and tolerance of free speech.

From there I walked down along the path heading south through the park, a mix of several paths through the trees: Asphalt for pedestrians, lanes marked atop it to direct bicyclists, and a path of wood chips through the grass for people to ride their horses.

Along the way we came across a fountain called “Joy of Life”.

We didn’t have time to go farther, needing to head over and catch the bus back up to meet the rest of the group at Selfridges.

If I’d had more time I wanted to walk along and see where the Crystal Palace had been, the Ring where people used to ride their carriages in two interlocked circles to socialize, to picture walking in it the people depicted in James Shirley’s play Hyde Park.