Battersea Park

On my first day back in London, I was welcomed by beautiful skies and pleasant temperatures. Since it doesn't really turn dark these days until 10 P.M., Mike and I decided to make a picnic and walk over to Battersea Park for dinner. As I've mentioned before, our home in Chelsea is just a block north of the Thames River.

Battersea Park is a 200 acre park located on the south side of the Thames River opposite us. It's a popular spot for joggers and bikers who often run down our street on their way to the park.

We cross the Albert Bridge built in the late 1800's to get to the other side. It's painted pink for better visibility and is lit by 4000 light bulbs at night. Enchanting to see.

We decided to sit in front of the fountains for our picnic. Battersea fields was once a popular spot for dueling, but was opened as a park in 1858. In 1951, the park was transformed into the Festival Gardens as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations. Water gardens, fountains and even a children's zoo can be found there today.

An old English garden is a recent renovation project.

Lavender scents the air.

A boating lake with paddle boats is another option for fun in the sun, and we hope to go back some day to take advantage of these.

The Peace Pagoda, built in 1985, can be seen from the river, and was built to encourage unity between all peoples and inspire them to world peace.

We enjoyed watching the dancers...

and the members of a boot camp group.

Always popular this time of the year is a cricket match.

Where there's cricket, there have to be batting cages.

All in all, we had a great evening, a long walk after dinner and found our way back across the Chelsea Bridge just a little ways upstream.