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the other parks. Unlike the others, however, Richmond Park still has wild red and fallow deer roaming its 2,360 acres (that’s three times the size of New York’s Central Park!) of grassland and heath and the oldest oaks you’re likely to see—vestiges of the forests that encroached on London from all sides in medieval times. The Isabella Plantation (near the Ham Gate entrance) is an enchanting and colorful woodland garden, first laid out in 1831. TIP There’s a splendid, protected view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from King Henry VIII’s Mound. Established in 1710, it measures 10 mi and is the bane of overenthusiastic town planners. Find it and you have a piece of magic in your sights. The park is also home to White Lodge, a 1727 hunting lodge that now houses the Royal Ballet School. Though the school isn’t open to the public, it does contain the small White Lodge Museum (020/8392–8440 | www.royal-ballet-school.org.uk) dedicated to the history of the school and ballet in general. Entry is on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons during the school year only and prebooking is essential. Richmond | 020/8948–3209 | www.royalparks.org.uk | Mar.–late Dec., daily 7–dusk; late Dec.–Feb., daily 7:30–dusk | Richmond, then Bus 371 or 65.

QUICK BITES: The White Cross (Water La., Richmond | TW9 1TH | 020/8940–6844), on the site of a monastery, serves traditional pub grub.

Fodor’s Choice | Syon House and Park.

The residence of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, this is one of England’s most sumptuous stately homes, and certainly the only one that’s near a Tube station. Set in a 55-acre park landscaped by Capability Brown, the core of the house is Tudor—Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, and the extremely short-lived monarch, Lady Jane Grey (“Queen for thirteen days”), made pit stops here before they were sent to the Tower—but it was remodeled in the Georgian style in 1761 by famed decorator Robert Adam. He had just returned from studying the sights of classical antiquity in Italy and created two rooms here worthy of any Caesar: the entryway is an amazing study in black and white, pairing neoclassical marbles with antique bronzes, and the Ante-Room contains 12 enormous verd-antique columns surmounted by statues of gold—this, no less, was meant to be a waiting room for the duke’s servants and retainers. The Red Drawing Room is covered with crimson Spitalfields silk, and the Long Gallery is one of Adam’s noblest creations. In the grounds of Syon Park, the Tropical Zoo (020/8847–4730 | www.tropicalzoo.org) is a rescue sanctuary for abused, abandoned, and illegally kept exotic pets, from snakes and tarantulas to marmosets and crocodiles. Kids even get to handle (some of) the creatures themselves at 11, 2, and 4 on weekends, and sometimes during the week if you call ahead. TIP On certain bank holidays and Sundays in the summer you can take a miniature steam-train ride in the grounds. | Syon Park, Brentford | TW8 8JF | 020/8560–0882 | www.syonpark.co.uk | £9 for house, gardens, conservatory, and rose garden; £4.50 for gardens and conservatory; £6.50 for Tropical Zoo | House mid-Mar.–Oct., Wed., Thurs., Sun., and bank holidays 11–5; gardens daily mid-Mar.–Oct. 10:30–5; Nov.–mid-Mar. 10:30–4; Tropical Zoo daily 10–5:30. Last admission 1 hr before closing | Gunnersbury, then Bus 237 or 267 to Brentlea stop.

Strawberry Hill.

From the outside, this Rococo mish-mash of towers, crenulations, and dazzling white stucco is almost fairytale-ish in its faux-medieval splendor. Its architect, Sir Horace Walpole (1717–1797), knew a thing or two about imaginative flights of fancy—the flamboyant son of the first British prime minister, he all but single-handedly invented the Gothic Revival style with his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764). Once inside, the forbidding exterior gives way to a veritable explosion of color and light for Walpole boldly decided to take elements from the exteriors of Gothic cathedrals and move them inside for interior accents. Constructed from 1748 onwards, the detail is extraordinary, from the cavernous entrance hall with its vast