Settling in .. and not much else.

On arrival at the hotel we completely unpacked and got settled in.  Atypical, for me at least, but we're sitting tight at this location for the entire duration so it's nice to have an at home feel. The accommodations are nice with the room feeling more like an apartment with a few separate spaces (kitchenette, living, bedroom) connected by a hallway.  The hotel itself is relatively new and therefore the finishes are modern.  We'll post a quick tour video in a subsequent post.

Once settled in at the hotel and unpacked the family decided to take a nap.  I took the opportunity to log some miles running in one of London's largest parks; Hyde Park. Our hotel is well positioned at the Northeast corner of Hyde park allowing easy access to all areas of the city.  Hyde park is bookmarked by Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace -- where Prince Charles & Princess Diana used to lay their heads -- and Park Lane. Heavy construction around the palace obstructed most of my 'on the move' views. The perimeter of the park has a horse riding path and the accompanying horse crap -- so steer clear.  The park, while huge, wasn't overly impressive compared to New York's central park although the history pre-dates the aesthetic considerations that Central Park would have had.  For example, Rotten Row was established to allow William III easier passage between palaces -- tough life. I didn't hear anyone ranting at the famous Speaker's Corner but we'll stop by again on the weekend.

King's Private Road -- aka Rotten Row

After clocking 8km around the park I hiked back up Park Lane past all the swanky hotels to hit the shower.  The fam was still sound sleep so I showered and headed over to Selfridges -- London's equiv of Holt's on steroids -- to kill some time.  On the way back I grabbed dinner to bring back to our "home" as Julie keeps calling it.  Surprisingly, everyone was still asleep!  Needless to say, jetlag should be cleared up after today and we'll set our sights on seeing a bit more of London tomorrow.

Sleeping with our arms up is cool in London.