Highgate Cemetery

Although the weather turned colder today, blue sky and sunshine accompanied most of the day. During the brief intervals when the blue disappeared, wind, rain, and even snow made dramatic appearances, but for the most part, it was still a good day to be out and about. Highgate Cemetery was today's destination, and on our way there, we noticed this church, now converted into very fancy flats.In order to get to the cemetery, we walked through adjoining Waterlow Park, another lovely park where we spotted a pretty pair of new-to-us ducks and Bob tried to get this singing bird to land on his hand, without success.
There are two parts to Highgate Cemetery; both sections require admission fees and you can only visit the older, western side on a guided tour. While we hadn't necessarily planned to tour the western side, we happened to arrive at the entrance gate a few minutes before the next tour, so we decided to have a look. The cemetery is up these steps
and filled with winding paths that our tour guide told us were purposely designed to give visitors the sense of being removed from the city and the rest of the cemetery, since you can never see too far back or too far ahead on any given path.


The entrance to "Egyptian Avenue" was imposing

and the "Circle of Lebanon" was a fascinating sight, with its vaults, numerous paths leading to the upper level, overhead church, and giant cedar tree atop the centre of the circle.
Many of the gravestones were highly ornamental and quite beautiful in the sunshine,






and some were almost completely taken over by the vegetation.
Two especially striking stones were this lion
and this dog.
Our tour guide told us that when this particular bare-knuckle fighter died, the car reserved for "principal mourners" in his funeral procession had a sole occupant, his dog, so the tombstone is a very fitting tribute. After the tour, we were going to head into the eastern section of the cemetery to see Karl Marx's and George Eliot's graves, but it began to snow/ rain just as our tour ended, so we decided to head home instead for a soothing combo of leftovers for dinner, hot beverages, and lots of heat in the living room.