Highgate Cemetery

Lonely Planet review

Most famous as the final resting place of Karl Marx and other notable mortals, Highgate Cemetery is set in 20 wonderfully wild and atmospheric hectares with dramatic and overdecorated Victorian graves and sombre tombs. It's divided into two parts. On the eastern side you can visit the grave of Marx. It's an amusing coincidence that buried opposite is the free-market economist Herbert Spencer - Marx and Spencer, does it ring a bell?

This slightly overgrown and wild part of the cemetery is a very pleasant walk but it's merely the overflow area. It's the wonderfully atmospheric western section of this Victorian Valhalla that is the main draw. To visit it, you'll have to take a tour and deal directly with the brigade of sometimes stroppy silver-haired ladies who run the cemetery and act like they are the home guard defending it from the Germans (eyes straight, shoulders back, chest out, march!). It is a maze of winding paths leading to the Circle of Lebanon, rings of tombs flanking a circular path and topped with a majestic, centuries-old cedar tree. The guides are engaging and gladly point out the various symbols of the age and the eminent dead occupying the tombs, including the scientist Michael Faraday and the dog-show founder Charles Cruft. 'Dissenters' (non-Church of Englanders) were buried way off in the woods. Tours (around £3 , plus around £1 per camera) depart 14:00 Monday to Friday (book ahead by phone) and every hour 11:00 to 16:00 Saturday and Sunday (no bookings).

The cemetery still works - the most recent well-known addition was Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who was done away with under most sinister circumstances in 2006 with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210 over tea in a Mayfair hotel - and closes during burials, so you might want to call ahead just to be sure it will be open.