Every day we log onto the Internet and check the weather, convinced that these sunny days can't last and the typical London rain must be on its way. However, so far, the weather reports have been predicting rain always one or two days away, and so far it hasn't materialized. We had planned to visit several art galleries today, but since it was once again supposed to be sunny and warm, with possible rain appearing on the weekend, we decided to visit Highgate Cemetery today. While it might be a little more drearily atmospheric in the rain, if I'm spending several hours walking outside, I'd rather it was nice outside.
We checked our tour book, which recommended reservations, as there are only two scheduled tours a day, and they won't take more than about 12 people. Fortunately, when we called, we were able to reserve a spot. Highgate is a little bit outside the standard tourist area, so we had to take the Northern tube to Archway - hadn't been on this tube before, and Monica and I checked the tube maps and snickered at some of the names. Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway. Hee! Another favourite was Barking. And Wapping.
From the Archway tube stop, Highgate is about one mile up the Highgate hill. Although we were very early, we wanted to find our way to the Cemetery, so we hiked up the hill. There are some very well preserved old buildings in this district. "Holy Joe's" is near the top of the hill, an old church with a green copper-domed roof, and there are some very picturesque pubs in the area. At this point, we turned and went through Waterlow Park - which is really very beautiful. Some gorgeous flowers, a few more ponds with birds, and lots of trees and rollling hills. You hear so many songbirds here. The area is listed as one of London's finest landscaped parks, and it is very lovely.
Anyway, we found the cemetery, and as we still had more than an hour before our tour, we walked all the way back down the hill to Archway Kebab. Mmm, Turkish food. Yummy. I'd had some in Paris and developed a taste for it. Back up the hill. Thank goodness I wore my runners today.
We got to the gates of Highgate Cemetery - it's separated into two sections, the East and West. Although you have to pay to get into either side, the West is accessible only by guided tours (which is what we'd booked). You have to pay because the cemeteries get no public funding and are maintained by a volunteer organization called the Friends of Highgate Cemetery (FOHC). I asked Monica to pronounce FOHC. :-)
So we're waiting there with quite a few other people, and eventually a woman named Jean comes out. She's what Monica referred to as the quintessential old British Lady. Very concerned that we are all queuing properly, and that we have all read the yellow notice on the notice board. It's very important that we read the notice board. And if we could all queue up nicely along the left, please. Thank you. Now we'll call out your names in the order of reservation, and those people will move to the front of the queue, please.
Okay, if we were going to do that, they why didn't we all horde at the back, then come out and queue when she called names? Otherwise, we're all just shuffling around and trading spaces.
While we were waiting, we saw a big black bird, and the inevitable crow vs. raven argument came up. Once again, I vote raven. Monica voted crow. Although when it opened its mouth and croaked, Monica was surprised. "What the hell was that?!" A moment of thought, and she concluded, "Perhaps that's just what crows sound like here. That's a 'caw' with a British accent." Eavesdropping bystander shakes head sorrowfully.
Jean tells us that they'd had extra reservations today, so they were going to take TWO tour groups (which is lucky for the people who didn't book). Tour group number 1 is lead off by proper older British gentleman. Tour group number 2 (that's us!) gets hip younger British guy with piercing. Monica is very pleased.
So, the Cemetery was founded in 1839, with the elaborate West side reserved for wealthy Victorian families. However, once the cemetery was full, it ran out of money. Things got progressively more overgrown and fell into disrepair - due to vandalism, it was completely closed in 1975 until FOHC took over.
It is very park-like now, with amazing statuary. One of the famous areas is Egyptian Avenue - it's where the most elaborate tombs are - the doorway is lined with pillars and obelisks, and it lead up through an open-roofed ivy-covered pathway. At the end, there's a circle of Mausoleums called the "Circle of Lebanon", named for the huge cedar tree in the centre, which apparently predates the cemetery by about 150 years. Past that, there are the Terrace Catacombs. Lots and lots o'dead people. These parts of the cemetery are said to have provided some inspiration for Bram Stoker's "Dracula", and occult people are still quite interested in them. (In the 1970s, some self-styled vampire hunter was arrested in Highgate after breaking into tombs armed with a stake and a crucifix. Nutbar.)
We took a winding route back through the cemetery, and on the way back, I noticed that the entrance to Egyptian Avenue was now barred, with yellow tape proclaiming "Unsafe Area - Keep Away". I asked tour-guy if that wasn't where we'd just been? It was, but there was a private tour booked after us, and they thought they might be "vampire people", so they weren't taking them up there. :-)
That concluded our tour (took about an hour). We went over to see the East side. The main attraction there is Karl Marx's grave, which has a giant bronze likeness of his head. (Tackyyy...) To be fair, he didn't put it there - the Communist party did. There are lots of other communists buried around him. You are allowed to wander one your own through the East side; it's very park-like, but nowhere near as spectacular as the West.
After that, Monica thought it might be nice to walk back through Hampstead, which is one of the more "posh" areas where rich Londoners actually live in single detached houses. Once we exited Waterlow Park, it was another mile and a half to Hampstead. A million uniformed teenagers were leaving Highgate School - I believe the tuition there is £4000 a year. Ouch!
We came up to Hampstead Heath, which is a very large public park. There is a map at the entrance, but it's very unspecific, and its obvious that you're following trails rather than marked paths. Monica was concerned we were going to get lost; I figured we could find the general direction we needed to go. And it was better than walking alongside heavy traffic.
It is a very large park. And yes, there were just trails leading here and there, without any markers. We sat down at the bottom of a big hill and consulted our map to no avail. I eyed big hill, and briefly considered climbing it, but it seemed like it would be a lot of work, so we continued, deciding to walk through the woods. (Later discovered that was called 'Parliament Hill' for a variety of possible reasons, and it gives a spectacular view of London. Darn it. Have to catch that on the next pass. Or not.)
Still in the park, we did come across another map. This was a smaller one, though - it showed the areas of Kenwood Estate, which was within the park. We contemplated trying to go to Kenwood House, but it was already 4:30 and it closed at 5:00, so we didn't think we'd make it. We did, however, walk through the edges of the estate, onto a duelling green (quite small - less chance of missing the target, I guess).
Monica does not have a great sense of direction and was stressing out that we were going to get lost here and starve and die. I didn't think so. Even if we were a bit off course, we were consistently heading in the general direction we needed to be. When we saw a uniformed man, we asked for directions - ended up continuing in the direction we'd been headed to exit onto Spaniard's Road. We did catch a glimpse of that impressive view of London from the edge of the park - you could see the skyline all the way down the Thames.
So we were back on track, walking through the old Hampstead neighbourhood - it has had many famous literary inhabitants, and the residents have worked hard to retain the original character of the neighbourhood. It was already after 5:00, so we were too late to tour any houses, but wound our way through the streets (with the assistance of our handy London A-Z mapbook) and eventually found our way back to Sumatra Road. My feet hurt.
When Neil and Geraldine got home, we finished off the day by going out to get fish and chips. Yummy! Monica and I went to get pick up some dessert at the 24-hour store - bought some ice cream, and hey, look at that, there's some Easter Creme Eggs. Uh oh. You know Catherine's going to buy those...
We checked our tour book, which recommended reservations, as there are only two scheduled tours a day, and they won't take more than about 12 people. Fortunately, when we called, we were able to reserve a spot. Highgate is a little bit outside the standard tourist area, so we had to take the Northern tube to Archway - hadn't been on this tube before, and Monica and I checked the tube maps and snickered at some of the names. Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway. Hee! Another favourite was Barking. And Wapping.
From the Archway tube stop, Highgate is about one mile up the Highgate hill. Although we were very early, we wanted to find our way to the Cemetery, so we hiked up the hill. There are some very well preserved old buildings in this district. "Holy Joe's" is near the top of the hill, an old church with a green copper-domed roof, and there are some very picturesque pubs in the area. At this point, we turned and went through Waterlow Park - which is really very beautiful. Some gorgeous flowers, a few more ponds with birds, and lots of trees and rollling hills. You hear so many songbirds here. The area is listed as one of London's finest landscaped parks, and it is very lovely.
Anyway, we found the cemetery, and as we still had more than an hour before our tour, we walked all the way back down the hill to Archway Kebab. Mmm, Turkish food. Yummy. I'd had some in Paris and developed a taste for it. Back up the hill. Thank goodness I wore my runners today.
We got to the gates of Highgate Cemetery - it's separated into two sections, the East and West. Although you have to pay to get into either side, the West is accessible only by guided tours (which is what we'd booked). You have to pay because the cemeteries get no public funding and are maintained by a volunteer organization called the Friends of Highgate Cemetery (FOHC). I asked Monica to pronounce FOHC. :-)
So we're waiting there with quite a few other people, and eventually a woman named Jean comes out. She's what Monica referred to as the quintessential old British Lady. Very concerned that we are all queuing properly, and that we have all read the yellow notice on the notice board. It's very important that we read the notice board. And if we could all queue up nicely along the left, please. Thank you. Now we'll call out your names in the order of reservation, and those people will move to the front of the queue, please.
Okay, if we were going to do that, they why didn't we all horde at the back, then come out and queue when she called names? Otherwise, we're all just shuffling around and trading spaces.
While we were waiting, we saw a big black bird, and the inevitable crow vs. raven argument came up. Once again, I vote raven. Monica voted crow. Although when it opened its mouth and croaked, Monica was surprised. "What the hell was that?!" A moment of thought, and she concluded, "Perhaps that's just what crows sound like here. That's a 'caw' with a British accent." Eavesdropping bystander shakes head sorrowfully.
Jean tells us that they'd had extra reservations today, so they were going to take TWO tour groups (which is lucky for the people who didn't book). Tour group number 1 is lead off by proper older British gentleman. Tour group number 2 (that's us!) gets hip younger British guy with piercing. Monica is very pleased.
So, the Cemetery was founded in 1839, with the elaborate West side reserved for wealthy Victorian families. However, once the cemetery was full, it ran out of money. Things got progressively more overgrown and fell into disrepair - due to vandalism, it was completely closed in 1975 until FOHC took over.
It is very park-like now, with amazing statuary. One of the famous areas is Egyptian Avenue - it's where the most elaborate tombs are - the doorway is lined with pillars and obelisks, and it lead up through an open-roofed ivy-covered pathway. At the end, there's a circle of Mausoleums called the "Circle of Lebanon", named for the huge cedar tree in the centre, which apparently predates the cemetery by about 150 years. Past that, there are the Terrace Catacombs. Lots and lots o'dead people. These parts of the cemetery are said to have provided some inspiration for Bram Stoker's "Dracula", and occult people are still quite interested in them. (In the 1970s, some self-styled vampire hunter was arrested in Highgate after breaking into tombs armed with a stake and a crucifix. Nutbar.)
We took a winding route back through the cemetery, and on the way back, I noticed that the entrance to Egyptian Avenue was now barred, with yellow tape proclaiming "Unsafe Area - Keep Away". I asked tour-guy if that wasn't where we'd just been? It was, but there was a private tour booked after us, and they thought they might be "vampire people", so they weren't taking them up there. :-)
That concluded our tour (took about an hour). We went over to see the East side. The main attraction there is Karl Marx's grave, which has a giant bronze likeness of his head. (Tackyyy...) To be fair, he didn't put it there - the Communist party did. There are lots of other communists buried around him. You are allowed to wander one your own through the East side; it's very park-like, but nowhere near as spectacular as the West.
After that, Monica thought it might be nice to walk back through Hampstead, which is one of the more "posh" areas where rich Londoners actually live in single detached houses. Once we exited Waterlow Park, it was another mile and a half to Hampstead. A million uniformed teenagers were leaving Highgate School - I believe the tuition there is £4000 a year. Ouch!
We came up to Hampstead Heath, which is a very large public park. There is a map at the entrance, but it's very unspecific, and its obvious that you're following trails rather than marked paths. Monica was concerned we were going to get lost; I figured we could find the general direction we needed to go. And it was better than walking alongside heavy traffic.
It is a very large park. And yes, there were just trails leading here and there, without any markers. We sat down at the bottom of a big hill and consulted our map to no avail. I eyed big hill, and briefly considered climbing it, but it seemed like it would be a lot of work, so we continued, deciding to walk through the woods. (Later discovered that was called 'Parliament Hill' for a variety of possible reasons, and it gives a spectacular view of London. Darn it. Have to catch that on the next pass. Or not.)
Still in the park, we did come across another map. This was a smaller one, though - it showed the areas of Kenwood Estate, which was within the park. We contemplated trying to go to Kenwood House, but it was already 4:30 and it closed at 5:00, so we didn't think we'd make it. We did, however, walk through the edges of the estate, onto a duelling green (quite small - less chance of missing the target, I guess).
Monica does not have a great sense of direction and was stressing out that we were going to get lost here and starve and die. I didn't think so. Even if we were a bit off course, we were consistently heading in the general direction we needed to be. When we saw a uniformed man, we asked for directions - ended up continuing in the direction we'd been headed to exit onto Spaniard's Road. We did catch a glimpse of that impressive view of London from the edge of the park - you could see the skyline all the way down the Thames.
So we were back on track, walking through the old Hampstead neighbourhood - it has had many famous literary inhabitants, and the residents have worked hard to retain the original character of the neighbourhood. It was already after 5:00, so we were too late to tour any houses, but wound our way through the streets (with the assistance of our handy London A-Z mapbook) and eventually found our way back to Sumatra Road. My feet hurt.
When Neil and Geraldine got home, we finished off the day by going out to get fish and chips. Yummy! Monica and I went to get pick up some dessert at the 24-hour store - bought some ice cream, and hey, look at that, there's some Easter Creme Eggs. Uh oh. You know Catherine's going to buy those...
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