Joe and Françoise's excellent adventures!: 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).