Kew is the place where London pauses to look at plants. The Royal Botanic Gardens, on the south bank of the Thames between Richmond and Brentford, were founded in the mid eighteenth century and grew into the largest living plant collection in the world, and UNESCO gave them World Heritage status in 2003. Inside the gates, a mixture of glasshouses, avenues and lawns holds plants collected from every continent: the Palm House, a huge curved iron and glass whale of a building from the 1840s, the Temperate House, which is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse anywhere, and the ten-storey Chinese Pagoda built in 1762 for Princess Augusta.
It is a good place for a ride in the sense that the approach is one of those suburban river roads in which London reveals itself in unexpected glimpses of green. From the west, the A4 and the roads along the Thames are busy, but the stretches near Richmond are leafy and calm, with the river path, old pubs and the great sweep of Richmond Park a short distance south. Riding in this part of London is fairly stop-and-go, with speed bumps, bus lanes and traffic cameras, so patience is needed more than skill. Parking for bikes is usually available but should be checked in advance, and the gardens charge an admission fee with set opening hours.
Brentford, the nearest larger place, has the Thames, the Grand Union Canal and plenty of petrol stations, shops and cafés, while Richmond is a lovely town of riverside walks, theatres and tea rooms where you can find just about anything. The area is also known for the football stadium that bears Brentford's name, and on match days the traffic gets tangled.
The gardens are at their best in spring, when bulbs and blossom run riot, and in autumn, when the woodland turns, but even in winter the glasshouses are warm, damp and slightly absurd, with orchids hanging in the steam and the smell of wet earth. Kew also holds the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst, a vault that stores seeds from thousands of species against extinction, which shows the gardens are not only about beauty but about survival.
If you need a pause between motorways and the city, a few hours here with a coffee under an old tree is a genuinely restorative thing.