Highgate Cemetery

So are we all, eventually.

It's pronounced hi-gt, one syllable. It is one of the magnificent seven. One of the cemeteries created in the 1830s to deal with the burgeoning London population. We learned in our tour that at the peak, Londoners were dying at a rate of 17/day. The cemetery then was a very noisy place.

Later, the Victorians developed a penchant for all things Egyptian so this mausoleum was built. It wasn't too popular with the Anglicans who wanted to bury their family in proper church style. But it is a magnificent and impressive structure.

The cemetery is filled with beautiful and poignant artwork. The grave above with fresh roses on the grave of the parents also tells a story. Taking time to really look around reveals stores of long lives and those cut short, great loves, and regular people trying to grab a piece of immortality for their loved ones. Included among those mostly forgotten are the greats and near greats. In addition to the family of Charles Dickens, Douglas Adams, and George Eliot there is the grave of Karl Marx.

Imposing, exuding ego and dominating the area is a grave marker that leave no mistake about who and what this person through of himself and the his predecessors.

In the cemetery,we also visited a catacomb where we were not allowed to take pictures. It was musty and damp and filled with death. There were skylights for finding your way about inside. It was very silent. It was everything we have been conditioned to fear about death and graveyards. It was the very essence of every tale you've every read or heard about death and dying, cemeteries, ghosts, and history.

It was indeed a place filled with ghosts. And magic. And the stories of those before us and the stories of our lives.