Urban oasis
After falling for his local park during the lockdowns, Tom Chesshyre recounts other green city spaces he has visited on his travels
During the lockdowns we have learned to love our local parks. After all, where else could we go, with foreign and even domestic travel off the agenda?
Walking around my nearby oasis, Richmond Park in South West London, got me thinking about the important role parks play in big cities – providing greenery amid the concrete jungle of everyday urban life.
It also made me cast my mind back to foreign city parks I had visited as a travel writer over the years.
The result was my new book Park Life: Around the World in 50 Parks. Here are some of my favourites:
BIG APPLE, BIG PARK
Central Park in New York City was dreamt up in the 1850s when the Big Apple had tripled in population to 700,000 in the space of 25 years. Herman Melville, the author of Moby-dick, complained at the time, that the city had become a “Babylonish brick-kiln” of construction.
Something had to be done. With great foresight, city planners set aside a great rectangle of land (770 acres worth) and created a superb space with woodland and lakes that acts as a green lung for the city, loved by locals and tourists alike amid the skyscrapers.
SPLENDID IN SYDNEY
Wander down serpentine paths with blooming borders while watching ferries cross the glistening waters of Sydney Harbour from the Royal Botanic Garden.
This has to be one of the world’s finest urban parks with its eucalyptus, weeping willows, jacaranda trees, tropical palm groves, fountains, herb gardens and rockeries.
TOP OCEAN VIEWS
From the top of Table Mountain National Park overlooking Cape Town (3,556ft) you have marvellous views of the Atlantic Ocean and Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for close to 20 years during apartheid in South Africa.
It is a place to reflect on the great changes to the country while enjoying this landmark point in Africa, first ascended by Europeans in 1503 when a Portuguese captain, Antonio de Saldanha, climbed up and thought the mountain looked like a table.
BEERHALLS AND BLISS
Tiergarten comprises 494 acres of park in the heart of Berlin, a short distance from Germany’s legislature and the president’s residence. Yet it is usually blissfully quiet amid its woodlands and lakes.
The park was opened in the 1740s by Frederick II with several elaborate Lustgartens (pleasure gardens) with fountains. The look has become more landscaped over the years, but huge boulevards for military parades were cut through the middle in the 1930s.
On the edges of the park are a few wonderful, old-fashioned beerhalls.
AUSTRIAN WONDERLAND
Graham Greene set one of the key scenes in his dark novella The Third Man – turned into a film starring Orson Welles – on the ferris wheel at Prater, Vienna’s huge main park (3,200 acres).
It is a classic moment in
20th century film, and you can still take trips looking out across the treetops of Prater beside the River Danube – a fine place for a stroll after
seeing the city’s main sights.
DREAM OF
GREEN
Jardin del Turia in Valencia is a park that follows the six-mile former course of the River Turia in
Spain’s third
biggest city. The river was diverted after a devastating flood in 1957 and afterwards city planners had the foresight to turn the dried-out riverbed into parkland.
Now it has become an oasis of green with fruit groves, woodlands, wildlife reserves and fields. At the end closest to the Mediterranean Sea is the fantastic, futuristic City of Arts and Sciences attraction.
PARK OF LOVE
Parque del Amor in Lima, Peru’s capital, is on a clifftop facing the Pacific Ocean and is so named because of a large, striking sculpture of a couple locked in a romantic embrace known as El Beso (The Kiss).
The sculpture was commissioned as the clifftop has long been a favourite meeting point for lovers – which gave Lima’s mayor the idea for renaming the park.
You get wonderful sunsets too.
BIG IN JAPAN
Tokyo has a population of almost 38 million people – so it needs a lot of parks. Ueno Park is one of many, covering 133 acres with lovely lotus ponds, temples and famous cherry blossoms (in spring).
It’s also home to a zoo, the Tokyo National Museum (packed with wonderful antiquities and art) and pond-side food stalls serving noodles – a peaceful escape from the city’s busy streets and neon lights.
Park Life: Around the World in 50 Parks by Tom Chesshyre, £16.99, published by Summersdale, is out now