A Day at Mount Auburn

Every Monday is family day, and this week rather than stay around the North Shore, we loaded up in the morning with maps and a guide book and headed south. For a long time now Kel and I have wanted to go to Mount Auburn Cemetary, and so when we heard it wasn't going to rain on Monday afterall, we hit the road.

The Cemetary was founded in 1831, and was the first designed landscape on a large scale that was open to the public. In this way, it was the forerunner of modern landscaped cemetaries, but also of public parks. Mount Auburn is vast at 174 acres, and is fascinating, with hills and dells, statuary and chapels, streams and ponds. Near the front entrance is a grand gothic chapel, and our walking tour brought us back there at the end of our trip. This turned out to be perfect timing, as a funeral service was just finishing and Addison was just waking up from catching a nap in the stroller.

Addison was pretty impressed, as were we. We were right in the city, but it felt miles away. It felt a bit like being in Europe, a bit like being in the country, with the statues and the trees and the chapels. Often the only sound was the singing of the birds.