There is no better short walk in London than Primrose Hill to Regent's Park at sunset. It's four kilometres, takes an hour and a quarter if you walk slowly, and you get the cheapest best view in the city for exactly nothing.
Start at Chalk Farm; walk ten minutes to the base of Primrose Hill. Climb it — it's small and sharp — and position yourself thirty minutes before the sun actually sets. The south-facing slope is where everyone else is. The west-facing ridge is emptier and gives you the same view of the skyline with a better light.
When the light starts to go amber, drop down across the footbridge into Regent's Park. You walk south with the sun on your back and the trees turning gold. Queen Mary's Gardens is the detour that almost every walker skips and shouldn't; the rose planting is genuinely world-class.
Exit onto Portland Place with the sky still red behind you. Home.
