Sydney’s Hyde Park…shade, rest and music!

Can a city ever have too much greenery?

We recently spent time in Sydney with my Scottish cousins….

It was nice to take the time and see the city centre through tourists’ eyes

Captain Cook, born in Yorkshire, landed in Australia in 1770…..what a contrast to the city we see today..

We walked through Hyde Park every day, and we were grateful to have these enormous trees giving us so much shade in Sydney’s hot summer.

Jane Jose in her book Places Women Make says… liveability means being able to walk to a park, near where you live, have shady trees and seating and ”accidental connectedness” to your neighbourhood or city…. 

an early morning yoga class..

This part of Hyde Park is very familiar to me as I came here every day when I first arrived in Sydney, from Africa, aged 19. I sat in the park and waited for my brother to finish work. (my two brothers were the only people I knew in Australia at that time.)

The park gave me a connection with people,  and I began to feel part of the city.

The Domain is near Hyde Park, and has some great playing fields for groups to use at lunch time in the city…

I love this sign, ”A place for people” …what a great reminder for all big cities!!

The flowers boxes in the city this summer are wonderful, and I have never seen parsley used so well in a flower bed…

Most of all I love buskers and music in the city….I always give some money to someone who is providing music….it is the food of life!

I’ll end with another beautiful, but exhausting city, Rome…we were there in May last year.

 

Even a glorious city like Rome can become too much, and one day we found this wonderful park. We sat in the shade of some big trees and listened to a busker playing the trumpet

soft melodious jazz never sounded so good …I can hear that music as I write…

Do you have a favourite park in your part of the world?