Home

We are back home- where pretty flowers welcomed us- full of memories and pretty pictures,including this one - of Montauk seen from the flight back.  

  

A rainy day in Glasgow.

We arrived at the port of Glasgow early and disembarked to a rainy day. The port is about 20 miles down the Clyde River estuary,

and we got some nice views of it on the way to the city. We then crossed it to enter the city. Glasgow was a big and thriving industrial city for several centuries - first importing sugar and tobacco, then making steel and building ships and trains. Early to mid 20th centuries, 25% of all the ships in the world were built in Glasgow!  But then, like most big industrial cities (think Detroit), it came on tough times. It is reinventing itself as a university/culture/ medical center town, but is still struggling. Unlike Edinburgh, it does not attract tons of tourists because, let’s face it, it’s just not as beautiful as Edinburgh. One reason is obviously that it does not have the well preserved medieval center, nor the well planned and designed “new town” with its pretty gardens and well planned out Georgian architecture.

It has a small area that is emulating it, but it is much smaller- that’s where our hotel is.  Indeed, because it was so industrial, much of the poorer areas have just been replaced with cement utilitarian buildings (some of them are being destroyed now and will hopefully be replaced by nicer ones), and there are precious few historical areas left.  

  The medieval cathedral is really beautiful and intricate inside,   and the outside is being redone (that’s a statue of Livingston in   front of it). The tomb of St Mungo is inside.But I forget why he is important….. 

 I went up to the old cemetery behind it because I love old cemeteries,   and because it’s on top of a hill that provides a nice view of what’s   left of old Glasgow.  

 And I love the old convoluted graves and memorials. Here are the one to John Knox and to Duncan Macfarlan (who I think was a bishop).

And a couple of other ones just because they are cool.

 

 As I said, much effort is being made to make the city   prettier and indeed, this building dates from 1993,   and was built in the medieval style of the area.  

Across the street is what I think is the oldest house in the city. From 1400 something (don’t quote me, I may have misunderstood the guide….). 

 We also stopped at the Kelvin Grove museum,   which is a VERY large building (it does not fit in   one  picture, so this is only about 1/2 of it.  It was   first built to house all the loot they got from the   Empire…..

and they sort of feel bad about it now….

  But still have some of it on display….

But they also have a lot of other stuff, the most famous one being this Dali painting - called Christ of St. John of the Cross, that I didn’t know about and is stunning (painted in 1951).  

 Also a gallery devoted to the “Glasgow boys”- Scottish painters of     the late 19th century, which I liked a lot (top picture is a         portrait of  Pavlova),         

 

and then a lot of just eclectic stuff.  (More from the museum at end of blog). 

It was full of families with children because today is a bank holiday , which was nice to see. But you know me and museum….. I soon had enough of all that culture, plus it had stopped raining for a while, so I went for a walk along the river, next to the old Glasgow university, and enjoyed the birds….  

 

They have most colorful and fat pigeons! (Actually Apple AI tells me this is a rock dove).  

 For lunch, we went to the pedestrian shopping area, called   Buchanan Street (isn't that funny?), where we had a proper tea time!  

It was raining hard when we got out, so I dashed into a shopping mall which used to be an old department store and was quite lovely (the stores were basically the same as in any upscale US mall).

 We had a last gala diner with our fellow travelers,   and are heading home tomorrow. 

Here are more pictures from the museum.  

Last stop in the Scottish isles: the isle of Mull

 This is the last day of our cruise. Tonight we sail to Glasgow, where will spend one day.  

We are in the lovely town of Tobermory: The town is, of course, tiny, but the setting is just beautiful.

Indeed queen Victoria kicked off the tourism industry here by declaring it the prettiest setting for a town she had ever seen. Nowadays, the setting is enhanced by the colorful houses lining the harbor.   

The weather forecast was very iffy for today: wind and rain mostly…. And it was mostly wrong. It fact, it turned out very pleasant, with the odd shower here and there, but mostly sunny. Mull is the rainiest spot in Scotland, so we were lucky!

I went for a hike in Aroos park, where it feels almost like a tropical forest. 

   

There is such a variety of moss, ferns and lichen! Our guide was very knowledgeable: here she is showing sphagnum moss, which has been used for millennia for its ability to hold and purify water.  

This is a lungwort lichen- showing how clear the air is. Lichen is an early detector of pollution, and its presence and diversity here is great.  

There were of course many wild flowers, including the ever present rhododendrons. They are beautiful, as I’ve said before, but not native and very invasive.  

 

In this park, they’ve tried to eradicate them by cutting them and then injecting the root with some poison (this shows the holes they drilled) but, only two years later, they are flourishing everywhere again.  

Here are a couple of my favorite native flowers. More at the end of the blog.

The guide had warned us that there were, many ticks in the park. I did not pay much attention to that until I looked at the pictures of flowers I had taken and saw that one.....

Aroos park is also the home of several 100 species of birds and in fact a destination for bird watchers from everywhere.

But the foliage is so dense that it’s really hard to see them. We could hear them all around us, but only this sweet robin showed his face.   There are a couple of white tailed eagle nests too, but they are impossible to see through the trees.   

There are many waterfalls in the park.  

They provide the town, and the salmon farms with clear water ( the pipe goes directly to the salmon farm (circle in the water), replacing the use of antibiotics to keep the fish  healthy. More moss, lichen, flowers and waterfalls at the end of the blog. 

In the afternoon, since it was Joe's turn to go and visit a castle, I had to uphold the family tradition and do a whiskey tasting-   also Joe had mentioned that the guy doing the presentation, Robin Lain, aka, Scotland’s whisky bard (that’s a small niche…) was great. He did not disappoint.  He had great and funny stories, sang well, and knew a lot about whiskey. Who knew there was so much to say and sing about it! He was sort of like Pete Seeger, if Pete Seeger sang about whiskey instead of civil rights. Here is a sample “whiskey for breakfast”. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb_vh2hRB14

 Anyway, it was great, and I even enjoyed the whiskey. Turns out, I may just be snooty and prefer single malt….

Joe went to the Maclean Castle. Clan fights between the Macleans and the Campbells, complicated by the Jacobite rebellion, which I will have to read more about when I get home….. 

 

   Here is the dude that rebuilt the castle after the Brit’s burned it down.

  

I am EXTREMELY jealous of the fact that Joe finally got to see some highland catle. hese are on every postcard, every stuffed animal in the souvenir store, and I have not seen any….

In the evening we had a farewell party, as well as our last dinner on the boat. A rainbow showed during dinner to say goodbye…..

Tomorrow with disembark in Glasgow, and get to tour the city a bit. The sea is rough this evening, but we got a nice sunset. 

More flowers and sights from Arros park