Everything you need to know about Hyde Park, the best park in the world for running

In his Sunday article in El Pais, on November 15, Mario Vargas Llosa celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of his collaboration with the newspaper. When he started writing for this medium, he lived in London and took advantage of his runs or walks in Hyde Park to think about his next column. There are many who use their walks in the park to order their thoughts about him, but few have the success of the Hispanic-Peruvian Nobel.

And it is that Hyde Park, which has a history of four hundred years, meets all the requirements to be classified as one of the great urban parks in the world. First of all, its exquisite location, surrounded by the best neighborhoods in the city such as Knightsbridge, Mayfair or Bayswater, its size: large: 140 hectares, similar to El Retiro in Madrid, but manageable and connected during the day to Kensington Gardens, another 110 hectares. The professionals further expand the perimeter of their career to also include the neighboring Green Park and Saint James, all of them communicated until a fourteen kilometer circuit is achieved, admiring some of the most outstanding places in the city such as White Hall and even the Palace of Buckingham.

Everything that can happen in London happens in the park and around it: demonstrations, open-air concerts and kilos of culture. The grand entrance at Hyde Park Corner is guarded by Aspley House, the Wellington mansion, little known but which houses a magnificent collection of Spanish painting fruit of the “gifts” of our Ferdinand VII to the Duke.

The most successful getaway for tourists continues to be the so-called Speakers corner, near Marble Arch, especially on Sundays when dozens of eccentrics get together who, perched on stools that they themselves have brought, speak about the divine and the human as a souvenir. of a, today unnecessary, absolute freedom of expression, circumscribed to that corner.

On weekends, the groups, weather permitting, get together by nationality to snack on their typical food and chat in multiple languages.

But true connoisseurs, especially if they live in North-West neighborhoods like Marylebone – I was lucky enough to do so for six years – prefer Regent’s Park, designed and developed, as the name suggests, in the days of the Regency of the future George IV, in the early 19th century, as part of John Nash’s modernizing design that included the construction of Regent Street to link the Prince’s Palace with the new Park.

The most suitable adjective for the park is “beautiful”, extremely well cared for, full of gardens, among which those of Queen Mary stand out, in the inner circle.

The outer circle has a circumference of just over four kilometers on paved terrain, enough for those who later have to go to the Office, and the inner two, for the walk of the elderly. All this only for pedestrians.

The more adventurous can extend the circuit a few more kilometers, leaving the park next to the zoo to reach the top of Primrose Hill, enjoy one of the best views of London, and return to the canal to admire some of the great mansions in the south shore, as the residence of the American Ambassador. Following the canal, Camden Town is reached following the barges that continue to transport products.

On the return and exit through the Baker Street area, the rows of terraced houses also designed by Nash for middle-class tenants and today the object of desire of the most fortunate attract attention.

In the Park is the Great Mosque of London, with the consequent influx on Fridays and holydays of numerous faithful Mohammedans. On Sundays the crowds head to the nearby Lord’s Crickets, the cathedral of that long passive sport invented by the English when everything was closed on Sundays.

Adventurers who want to know more about it can head to Regent’s Park Cricket Club in the Inner Circle to learn and watch the fans play on the pitch. The real runners will just take a look, busy with their business.

And one last thing, in London, as is well known, the weather is fine and it never rains. It is essential to have this belief well internalized in order not to lose a single day of the race.