Thursday, July 3rd                        Glasgow

Robyn writes: We've had a great day today! We set the alarm to get us up at 7am so we could make sure we got away on time, and headed down to breakfast nice and early. After the usual delicious breakfast, we got ourselves organised and left for Alloa, where the train begins, around quarter to nine. It only takes about ten minutes to get there, so we found the railway station again, easily got a park, and discovered that the station was still locked. The train didn't leave until 9.35, so we popped into the Asda shop next door for a cuppa and a paper, then headed back in time to get the train. It was fairly popular, with quite a few people lining up for tickets. We bought our off-peak return tickets (8 pounds 70 each) then got onto the train to wait (the train starts at Alloa). Right on time, we were off and enjoyed our 50 minute ride into the centre of Glasgow.

We went into George Square (sort of the Glasgow equivalent of King George Square), which is currently full of a huge tent of Commonwealth Games merchandise. Glasgow is of course very excited about the upcoming sporting event! At the Town Hall, we got maps of the city which were very handy. Our next stop was the information centre where we got some info about the city's museums (it has lots, and they are all free). Then we headed for the Willow Tea Rooms, a reconstruction on the site of the original tearooms designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the turn of last century. These are just lovely, and many of the original early Art Nouveau features are still there. They've redone it as closely to the original as they can in colours, furniture and decor. We had a lovely morning tea there and a look around the rest of the building.

 Charles Rennie Mackintosh tea rooms for morning tea

 Kelvingrove Museum

Sniffly meets Clyde, the mascot of the Commonwealth Games. He's made out of hundreds of plants!

Next, we headed for the nearby subway station and bought ourselves Day passes (4 pounds each) and travelled to Kelvingrove Museum. This had lots of really interesting displays of art, history and science. I really enjoyed the Glasgow Boys' work - a group of Glasgow artists from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, and the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's wife, Margaret - she was an incredibly talented artist. I've always loved Art Nouveau, and she and her sister were right at the forefront of it. We had a lovely lunch in the cafe at the museum - I had the soup of the day (sweet potato, carrot and rosemary) and Lex had a "Cullen Skink" (don't laugh, though he did when he was ordering it!). It's actually a smoked haddock chowder, and he really enjoyed it.

Our next stop was the museum at the University of Glasgow, the Hunterian. It was a nice walk there through the park and past some very impressive buildings into the university precinct. Lots of big, grand sandstone edifaces in Glasgow! The uni must have had graduation day this morning, but it was all over, and almost deserted. Just the odd graduate still wandering around in their robe and posing for photos. We had a quick look around the museum then went across the road to their Art Museum where the Mackintosh House is located. There was a tour starting at 3.30, so we signed up for that, and looked around the museum's art collection in the meantime. The tour through the house was fascinating - they have the entire interior of the Mackintosh's house (which was demolished about 50 years ago) carefully reconstructed just as he designed it when they were living there around a hundred years ago. All of the windows, furniture, lighting and accessories are original and the fabrics are carefully copied reconstructions of the original. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos and got moved fairly fast through it; I would have loved more time to look.

 Glasgow Mall

 Sniffly wondering: is Doctor Who here??? (Sorry, that's a proper call box!)

In George Square: Glasgow is all geared up for the games!

 

From the uni, we took the subway back into the city centre, and split up - Lex to go to the Gallery of Modern Art, and me to shop! (Glasgow is famed for its shopping.) I had a lovely time wandering around the huge city centre. We were lucky with the weather today - it was cloudy and windy and cool (mostly around 15 degrees or so) but no rain, so great for sightseeing. Lex wasn't impressed with the GOMA (he thought most five-year-olds could do better) and went for a walk instead until we met up again at 6 in front of the Town Hall.

We had an early tea at Jamie's Italian Restaurant on George Square - the food prices were ok but the drinks were horribly expensive. Lovely food though! I must Google his Pasta Carbonara recipe - it was delicious and not way too rich and creamy as some of them are. Then we headed back across to the station to catch the 7.18 back to Alloa. We were a bit surprised that the train was quite full, but we managed to get seats as we were there early. Train travel is alive and well and popular in Scotland, and no wonder - it's so much cheaper than in England. We were back in Alloa just after 8.10, and home at the hotel by half past. Of course, this was all still in the daylight. Our lovely landlady here was very pleased that her suggested day trip had gone so well! Have had a long hot soak in the bath to relieve tired feet after city walking all day, and think it will be an early night. Tomorrow is moving day; we're off to Inverness!