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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Thursday, 24 October 2024

Evening Walk - 'Royal' Parks, the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion (last week) and (maybe) Gerhard Richter's Strip-Tower

Length: 6.0 km
Net Walking Time: 1 ½ hrs 
 
Meet: Queensway Station (corner of Queensway and Bayswater Road) at 18.15 hours. Queensway is on the Central Line in Zone 1, Bayswater (Circle and District lines) is a 3-minute walk away. 
Finish : Whitehall/Trafalgar Square, near Charing Cross/Embankment/Westminster/Waterloo stations. All are in Zone 1. 
Drop-Outs: Hyde Park Corner or Green Park tube stations, or buses.
 
Map-led, through Central London's extensive ‘Royal’ Parks, past the 2024 Serpentine Gallery’s Summer Pavilion in Kensington Gardens (last chance: closes end of this week) as well as Gerhard Richter’s Strip-Tower Sculpture (only there to the 20th according to the website, but maybe it’s not been ferried away yet).
 
Opening Hours: The Gardens are open to 18.30 only, but (from memory) there is a one-way turnstile near the Serpentine Gallery for us to get out, and in any case the fence is not too high to climb over: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks/kensington-gardens. Hyde Park, Green Park and St. James’s Park are open to midnight: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks 
 
Eat/Drink: Numerous options around Whitehall and Trafalgar Square.
 
For walk directions , map, photos and gpx/kml files click here . T=short.19

1 comment:

Thomas G said...

5 walkers met on time, with 1 other starting a bit later. The gates into Kensington Gardens were still open and plenty of cyclists and dog walkers were about. The n=6 walkers joined up at Kusama's pumpkin sculpture by the lake and walked on to the Serpentine Gallery. Gerhard Richter's Strip-Tower was indeed still there, as suspected, but the gallery had erected a sturdy metal fence around itself and the Summer Pavilion, which we therefore could only admire from about 20 metres away. It looks magnificent.
Out through the still open gates and past the one-way turnstile near the Serpentine into Hyde Park. The air was still w=pleasantly-warm and light levels were sufficient to not having to use torches at all. Just as well, as that way we could see the plentiful bats in the air above.
We reached Whitehall at 7.45 and opted for a fashionable pizza joint near Charing X. That though had no tables available for the next 2 hours, so off to Prezzo on the other side of the street we went.