Glasgow

21 - 24 February

We arrived in Glasgow after an uneventful 90 minute Flix Bus trip from Perth and were able to walk down the hill in fine weather to our apartment.

After a coffee at one of the local cafes, we spent that first afternoon going for a short walk around our neighbourhood. We were in the older, eastern end of town- the Merchant area- and spent a bit of time in one of the many pubs all heaving with patrons watching the 6 nations rugby. Great atmosphere - Scotland scored in the last minutes of play to defeat Wales.

Sunday morning we did a guided "free" city walk and learnt a few things about Glasgow that helped orient ourselves to Glasgow as well as help us over the next few days.

Some of our favourite things we learnt:

On the wall of Civic building, the standard lengths of an inch, foot and yard are displayed. At the Tron Gate nearby, standard weights were displayed.

Dishonest merchants might have an ear nailed to the pillar of the Tollhouse Steeple (there are nails still there!); this is where the expression earmarked comes from

Glasgow has a vibrant street art scene, including their own Banksy-like figure. The Rebel Bear does Banksy style stencil paintings around Glasgow, and does all their (her? his?) work dressed in a bear suit.

The Art Mural Trail has a stack of huge art on the sides of buildings.

In some of the older buildings you can see where windows have been filled in with brick or stone. We knew about window tax, but didn't know this is where the term daylight robbery comes from. 

Also, some of these buildings have really wide front doors - because the billionaire owners loved to show off their wealth by being carried around town in a sedan chair that needed a wide door to be carried into their house!

We went to the pub for lunch and enjoyed the delicious, local soup, Cullen Skink. Smoked fish, potato and onion soup cooked in a milky broth. Loved it.

And that expression "run like the clappers"?

Until police were issued with whistles, beat police used to carry clappers or rattles to alert other coppers nearby that they needed assistance by making a racket with these devices. 

The Glasgow police force is the oldest force in the world. Like most people, I was always told that London's police force was the first, initiated by Robert (hence Bobbies) Peeler. Turns out that was wrong, and Mr Peeler was never a copper at all.

Beat police used to have a route they walked, and if the public needed to get in touch with them, they could do so from the police box (as in Dr Who).

Turns out the dozen or so that are left dotted around the city are all painted the wrong colour - they were originally red.

We also were encouraged to try was the Glaswegian delicacy, the deep fried Mars Bar with ice cream. We survived the experience, but don't feel the need try it again. And can safely predict we won't be partaking in deep fried pizza... it seems they deep fry anything and everything here.

Monday morning we caught a bus to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which was fascinating. On our city walk we heard that there was (is) an organ recital each day at 1pm on the impressive, huge organ in the main foyer. 

Some really interesting exhibits there, including a huge Salvador Dali art work.

A lot of the exhibits focus on how Scotland's rise to be an economic power is tied to their tobacco trade that flourished as a result of the African slave trade they did with the American colonies.

(We're staying near Virginia Square (as in Virginia tobacco and Buchanan Street - he was a billionaire trader at the time). 

A number of exhibits point out that racism is very prevalent in Glasgow, which is interesting when you consider this note.

They appear to really want to own this black past and take many opportunities to highlight the many who profited from the slave trade.

One Glasgow icon is the Duke of Wellington statue at the front of the Gallery of Modern Art. It's famous for having a traffic cone perpetually placed on its head, a tradition that has continued since the 1980s resisting city council efforts to remove it! Every time the council removes the cones, new ones appear and they have now given in.

It's the perfect spot for a bit of irreverent wit, outside the Gallery of Modern Art.

Interestingly, that building that is the Gallery of Modern Art... was a slave-trading tobacco importer's house!

We caught a bus down to the Riverside Museum, dedicated to technology and transport. It's located where the Glasgow docks used to be; from being one of the ship-building capitals of the world, this industry no longer exists locally.

We walked up to the Glasgow Cathedral (St Mungo's) for a looksee, and then over The Bridge of Sighs to the Necropolis where 50,000 people, including historical figures like John Knox, he of the Scottish Reformation, are buried.

A great 4 or 5 days here. Definitely our favourite Scottish city.

Six months ago in planning, our thought was that we'd catch a train to Ludlow.

However, and this is crazy, it was cheaper for us to fly to Heathrow (albeit on points) and hire a car for two weeks and drive back to Heathrow to fly home, than it was for us to catch a train from Glasgow to Ludlow, and then Ludlow to London.

Speak to you soon (for the last time before coming home) from Ludlow in Shropshire.