Glasgow (2)
Wednesday evening

Glasgow is great – not what anyone would call a beautiful city, but it is really interesting and energetic!  Some of the architecture is fantastic; some is rather ugly – but inside some of the buildings are fabulous collections of fabulous things.  We spent a full day at Kelvingrove Gallery which was wonderful and we’ve been to the Gallery of Modern Art (one of the very beautiful buildings), the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University (including Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s house), the Riverside Museum (transport and travel) and the ‘Glenlee’ tall ship, the Botanical Gardens and the Willow Tea Rooms (also Mackintosh).  We’ve made full use of the sightseeing tourist hop-on-hop-off bus over two days and also went on a Clyde river cruise which was great.  We walked all around Byres Street in the trendy west end and explored some of the lanes, and had coffee of course.

 

 

 

The Willow Tea Rooms (above) are just around the corner from our apartment in Renfrew Street as is the Glasgow Film Theatre, so last night we went to see a Saudi Arabian film (directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, a woman, and shot entirely within Saudi Arabia) called ‘Wadjda’ which was fantastic.  The GFT is a great cinema; if we lived in Glasgow we’d use it all the time!  The Mackintosh's reconstructed home at the Hunterian was really a highlight of our time in Glasgow.  It is really lovely, ahead of its time in terms of light and space and white painted walls, and beautifully decorated.  It was also quite an intimate experience; we loved it!

 

But our time runs out and we’re off to Boston tomorrow.  We’ve had a wonderful time; all of the Glaswegians we’ve met have been friendly and helpful and their accent is delightful.

 

 Here are two of Glasgow's street scenes.  The statue of Wellington is at the entrance to the Gallery of Modern Art and council workers remove the traffic cone every day, but it always reappears overnight.  Today the horse had one too, but that's less common.

And here's part of the pedestrian zone at the top of Buchanan Street...

So, for those Rod Stewart fans who can still remember, tomorrow we're doing Atlantic Crossing for real.

Judy and Rob