St James's Park

The lake catches you first - proper blue on a decent day, with pelicans drifting past like they own the place. They do, actually. St James's Park sits slap in the middle of London, which means you can walk across the Serpentine Bridge with the roar of traffic behind you and genuinely forget you're in a city.

It's one of those rare London spaces where you can actually breathe. The park sprawls across 57 acres of grass, mature trees, and water features. You'll spot pelicans (a gift from the King of Morocco in the 1660s, inexplicably), waterfowl of every description, and occasional herons standing absolutely motionless. The views across the park towards the Horse Guards Parade and Buckingham Palace are the stuff postcards are made of, though that doesn't make them any less worth standing and staring at.

Best for walkers and anyone after a proper London lung-clear. Families get an hour, maybe ninety minutes before kids want feeding. It's free - genuinely free - and open year-round from dawn to dusk. Go midweek if you can stomach it; weekends tip into tourist chaos, but you'll manage.

The park meshes brilliantly with a London stay. Lovat Parks sits just under a mile away, making it the kind of base where you can venture into central attractions without feeling chained to the city. Duck in here between museums and shopping. It's the sort of place Londoners use all the time but visitors often miss entirely.