Highgate Victorian Graveyard and Hyde Park

We felt like branching outside the city center a little, so today we planned a trip to the Highgate area just north of London to visit a well known London graveyard.

After about thirty minutes or so of train travel, along with a couple of transfers we found ourselves in a fairly sleepy part of the city and ambled along some quiet roads.

As we walked through some nice neighborhoods we ran into a busy bakery (Gail's Artisan Bakery) and we bought a piece of apple cinnamon crumble cake. OH MY GOD! It was literally the best coffee cake we've EVER tasted.

After savoring every bite of the crumble cake (so moist on the inside, crunchy on the top and not too sweet!) and wishing we had purchased like forty more we came to the base of the hill that leads to the enormous graveyard.

At the base of the hill is a beautiful private housing compound hidden behind ancient walls and an elaborate gated entry.

The 150 year old homes were all fantastic with amazing details. We both mused what it must be like to come home to one of those fairytale residences every day.

Small private gated housing estate. Who lives behind those gates?

After a walk up a steep road that ran along the graveyard's wrought iron fence we came to the entrance to the gigantic graveyard. Highgate graveyard is comprised of two separate graveyards, the West and the East side.

Only the newer Victorian East side is open to self guided tours, where the older West side is limited to Saturday only prearranged guided tours. Obviously since it was a Tuesday, we would be walking through the east side. Highgate's east side graveyard was one of the Magnificent Seven, seven beautiful Victorian graveyards that were built throughout the city in the late 19th century to take the pressure off London's extreemlyovercrowded cemeteries.

This graveyard fell into ruin during the turn of the century, and many of the highly ornate Victorian gravestones and tombs are overgrown and choked with ivy making for amazing photo opportunities.

Highgate Cemetery has several famous people buried here, with Karl Marx being the most notable. Another very interesting thing to do is to read the inscriptions on the gravestones and monuments. It's really unbelievable the types of things people died of during that period in time. Anything to the Charge of the Light Brigade, succumbing to Dengue Fever or drowning in the Ganges River. The British were everywhere in the late 19th Century.

The grave site of Karl Marx has had been threatened by two different bombing attempts 

We strolled to the bottom of the graveyard down a fairly steep hill. The day was brisk but the sun was starting to come out and it was a lovely spring day.

Someone had a sense of humor...

The collar kind of takes the superstition aspect down a notch

After finally dragging David away from the graveyard (he loves old cemeteries and likes to linger looking in every nook and cranny) we exited the cemetery and after strolling through a nice little park we came upon a spectacular church. They seem to be everywhere in London and are always so beautiful.

We continued down a long hill to a tube station and took the underground to the Mayfair area and Grays Antiques.

This was another strike as far as we were concerned. Unless you are looking for high end vintage jewelry, and we mean HIGH END, then this is not the antique shop for you. We made the best of it since we were there anyway, and shuffled along browsing at 34,000 pound ruby and sapphire necklaces and 40,000 pound 1950's Rolex's. Needless to say we didn't buy anything.

After a fairly quick (for us anyway) trip through Grays we realized we were famished and headed a couple of blocks down to "The Grazing Goat" for lunch.

Pretty sure we picked it based on name, and although the food was pretty good (Jerani had a nice hamburger and I had a Beef and Ale Pie) the service was by far the worst we had encountered since arriving in London. We had a waitress who seemed just about ready to go postal, and it wasn't aimed just at us but on all those she was serving. The service people we had up to this point have all been extremely cordial, polite and professional, so it was quite a shock to witness her complete lack of decorum.

After leaving the Grazing Goat we made our way over to Hyde Park passing some fantastic buildings along the way. There are amazing architectural details, sculpture and stunning building everywhere you look in London. It's hard to take it all in. You should see some of the pictures we haven't uploaded!

We wound our way past all of these beautiful buildings and came out directly across from Hyde Park.

Cool idea for a sculpture. Can't say I would've thought of it.

One of the things you can't really experience when reading our blog is just how badly I (David) had to go to the bathroom as we entered this HUMONGOUS park. For some reason that I can't explain I didn't think to use the bathroom as we left the Grazing Goat, even though I had just consumed two glasses of water and a pint of Ale. Fast forward twenty minutes into the future and I was snapping this picture at one of the numerous entrances to the park. So now, as you peruse the next several photographs keep in mind that we kept checking the parks many "you are here" directional boards, only to discover that we were about a mile and a half from the nearest lavatory. I truly was dying.

One of the entrances to Hyde's Park. So flat isn't it? I think it looks better with the leaves on the trees.

 Nope, still haven't found a bathroom. I'm sorta whimpering at this point.

Do you see the building on the right hand side of this twenty acre lake we had to walk around? That's the first bathroom we came to since we entered the park about a mile back! Come ON park Planners, REALLY!!!

The woman proceeded to jump up there and pose in a million embarrassing poses while her husband snapped pics. It happens all over now. People posing in all these overly affected ways. Facebook, instagram stuff. And the selfie sticks! Common all over.

Almost made it to the bathroom at this point. I know you are all pretty concerned, but it was within sight of this huge bronze Cormorant. I did in fact make it without an embarrassing incident. Something of of Herculean effort if I do say so myself! 

After leaving the park we walked over to the nearest tube station and looking up above a large brick building along the route we spied this er, Rhino suspended above the entrance. Not quite sure what the connection was, but it was a nice life size rhino, so good for them!
Another day of sightseeing done! An 8 miler and we were feeling it at the end. It was always so nice to get off the train at Imperial Wharf at the end of the day. It's sleepy and nice here and we love it.