London in 50 Walks: Walks 16 and 17

Beautiful weather in London doesn't come along too often, especially not coinciding with a long weekend so to make the most of it Jackie and I decided to do a couple of our 'London in 50 Walks' walks, we chose walk numbers 16 and 17 to do together as they shared a common start point.

The map cards for walk 16 and 17 overlap making it a good opportunity to do the two together

We started with walk number 17, doing the walk in reverse from Archway tube station to Highgate tube station. Doing the walk in reverse tested our abilities to follow the walk instructions in reverse, we managed alright.


View London Walks #17 in a larger map

The start of our walk at Archway was reasonably uneventful, other than the fact that we start off walking up quite a steep hill. At the top of the hill we turned in to Waterlow Park.

Getting our bearings in Waterlow Park

We promptly decided to have a slightly early lunch, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, not that the rest of the day wasn't great but the lunch was exceptional .We had packed left over orzo salad from the night before, it was great the first time around and even better the second time as we sat in Waterlow park, overlooking a pond and a beautiful hilly, green park.

Jackie modelling a very summery outfit at our early lunch stop

We moved on past a hoard of kids ensconced in Easter Sunday activities. After strolling around the park we got to the Highgate Cemetery  where Karl Marx is buried, however it was with great disappointment that we found there was a £3 charge to enter the cemetery, which we objected too, so we carried on walking along our path, up another steep hill.

As often is the case in parks there were many benches in memory of people, this one however was just a one person seat, I'm not sure if that says something about the budget available for this memorial or if it was symbolic of their lack of friends, either way it was out of place in amongst all the 4 person benches around the park. 

Photo of Highgate cemetery, as much as we could get for free. Disappointing that we couldn't go and see Karl Marx's grave but I'm sure we'll get over it. 

At the top of the hill we were at Pond Square, which lacks a pond these days but which had a great looking pub called the Flask. Unfortunately it wasn't time for another stop yet.

The Flask pub, unfortunately too soon after our lunch to stop here.

We carried on along North Road, past a petrol station with an inviting menu including smoothies and Monmouth coffee (one of the better coffees to be found in London). Here we missed our turn off, possibly distracted by people asking us for directions.

There are loads of blue plaques around with obscure famous people, at least we'd actually  heard of Charles Dickens, although the fact he stayed there in 1832 is hardly a claim to fame, I'm sure he stayed in lots of places over his life, it wasn't as if this is where he wrote one of his books.

We backtracked and found our turn off, just in time to see a volley of oddballs, starting with a cross dresser, followed by a jogger who was panting so hard we were worried whether he was going to make it home and finished with a generally odd looking girl. All quite peculiar given the suburb seemed especially normal, if slightly fancy.

Onwards, through a narrow lane way which I'm sure claims its fair share of side mirrors of cars and into the homeward stretch.

We started walk 16 with a coffee and Portuguese tart from a coffee shop called Laos. Despite using Monmouth coffee and having a flat white on the menu, what I got was a milky drink with a hint of coffee flavour, not particularly satisfactory. The tart was good though which almost made up for the poor coffee. A bit of a disappointing end to walk 17 and start to walk 16.

Laos cafe, bad coffee, don't go there.

Map below shows walk 16 in blue, our walk back to the tube in red.


View London Walks #16 in a larger map

One of the most interesting parts of the walk was the section which was through a wooded walkway which is a disused railway line. The tracks have been taken away to create a long thin park, which is mainly a walkway. It was pleasant in the shade, just before we had to turn off the walkway there was another Easter egg hunt underway with lots of raucous kids.

Parkland walk, along the route of a former railway track

Jackie on the Parkland Walk

After a brief return to the footpath the walk took us along another narrow, wooded walkway.

Jackie checking we're on track

 After the walkway we turned back onto a regular footpath. From here we had a view of Alexandra Palace.

Alexandra Palace in the distance (you can't actually see it when the picture is this size) but we had a half decent view

We then walked down the hill into Crouch End, where the walk finishes. We did the loop of Crouch End to complete the walk as required by the map and then settled at a cafe for a smoothie and cake as a reward for our efforts. Unfortunately the cakes weren't particularly special, a bit dry, which was a shame as we deliberated long and hard about which of the numerous cafes to go to and we both agreed this one looked like the best, clearly we were wrong. Nevertheless it was still good to sit down and rest after our walk.

Banner's cafe/restaurant in Crouch End where Bob Dylan had a regular table in the back

We decided to finish off by walking back to Highgate tube which was a nice walk in itself through rather swish  residential suburbs. We were lucky that the tube took us all the way back to Balham, the final challenge was staying awake on the tube to avoid missing our stop.

Three walks done, 47 to go.

Coming soon.... our Royal Wedding update.