Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Today we slept in a bit before getting moving. The original plan was to walk to the Tenement House that is recommended by Rick Steves and then do his West End Walk. Instead I decided to do the West End Walk first, and if time permits, then we can do the Tenement House. From our AirBnB, the West End Walk starting point is a 1 hour drive, so we decided to take the subway. It was a 15 minute walk to the station, and then a 10 minute subway ride. When the subway car pulled up seemed about 2/3rd's the size of the New York subway car. Kind of cute:
We got off the train and emerged into Glasgow's West End. We walked down to the Glasgow Botanical Garden. Just inside the entrance is the Glasgow city seal. The seal is comprised of symbols (bird, tree, bell, and salmon with a ring in its mouth), signifying the 4 miracles performed by St. Mungo, Glasgow's founding father. For more about St, Mungo, see the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Mungo).
The park was beautiful.
We walked a bit a bit and then it started to rain, so we ducked inside one of the greenhouses.
The first display was titled "Killer Plants" and consisted of carnivorous plants such as the Venus Flytrap and the Pitcher Plant.
The first display was titled "Killer Plants" and consisted of carnivorous plants such as the Venus Flytrap and the Pitcher Plant.
Then we entered the main part of the greenhouse. Wow!
TIm liked the monkey on the lap of King Robert of Sicily:
Back outside the Botanic Gardens was an old Tardis....uhm....police call box.
This is a great mural. If only tarten can be canned!
Can you believe that Rick Steves' walking tour took us right past the Innis & Gunns Brewery? We obviously had to stop for a flight and a small lunch.
After a flight and a pint, we continued the walking tour onto the campus of the University of Glasgow.
First stop was the Hunterian Art Museum. Here I am entering the building:
I don't think Tim was too impressed with the exhibit since he took this photo, and the next photo was of us leaving.
We then went back across the street to the main campus building and entered the Hunterian Gallery. This was a whole 'nother story. The majority of this collection was owned by William Hunter (1718 - 1783). Upon his death, he donated his collection to the University of Glasgow. This collection ranged from Roman Empire artifacts, to stuffed animals, to human body parts in jars, to deformed stuffed animals, to musical instruments, to dinosaur bones, insect and butterfly collections, to gem collections, to medical equipment. It was an amazing collection to look at.
We then went back across the street to the main campus building and entered the Hunterian Gallery. This was a whole 'nother story. The majority of this collection was owned by William Hunter (1718 - 1783). Upon his death, he donated his collection to the University of Glasgow. This collection ranged from Roman Empire artifacts, to stuffed animals, to human body parts in jars, to deformed stuffed animals, to musical instruments, to dinosaur bones, insect and butterfly collections, to gem collections, to medical equipment. It was an amazing collection to look at.
I think we spent at least 1.5 hours walking around this amazing museum. Oh, on the top floor was a collection of scientific instruments developed by Kelvin, the father of thermodynamics and who absolute zero is named after (no photos from Tim...he must have been tired by then).
We went back outside and walked through an impressive cloister:
We went back outside and walked through an impressive cloister:
And emerged into the quad of the campus. What a beautiful campus.
Speaking about Kelvin, we left the campus and walked down to the Kelvingrove Park and was greeted by Kelvin himself:
In the background is the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, our next stop. We arrived there at 4 PM, so only had 1 hour to try to do a whirlwind tour of the place. When we entered we were greeted by St. Elvis (the light around his head is supposed to be a halo.)
Lots of taxidermy animals.
One of Tim's favorite exhibits, a Spitfire.
In one hour we went through the endangered animal gallery and tried to focus on the Scotland themed exhibits until we got swept out the door just before 5 PM.
We sat on a ledge or something for bit to relax and decided to take a train to another brewery on the east side of town. When we arrive at our station, we had a 10 minute walk, but was interrupted by a sign advertising £2.20 pints of Tennents. Tennents is brewed right here in Glasgow and we haven't had it yet, so we went inside and ordered a couple of pints. It kind of tastes like Budweiser, but it was cold and enjoyable.
We sat on a ledge or something for bit to relax and decided to take a train to another brewery on the east side of town. When we arrive at our station, we had a 10 minute walk, but was interrupted by a sign advertising £2.20 pints of Tennents. Tennents is brewed right here in Glasgow and we haven't had it yet, so we went inside and ordered a couple of pints. It kind of tastes like Budweiser, but it was cold and enjoyable.
After the Tennent we were ready for some good beer, so we finished our walk to West Brewery. We ordered a flight, and since this was a German-style brewery, we ordered 2 pretzels.
When we were done we exited the building and looked back.. Wow...what an amazing building the brewery was in. We didn't notice when we entered because we entered through a back entrance. I guess this used to be a carpet manufacturing plant that supposedly designed and manufactured the carpet on the Titanic.
It was about a 15 minute walk back to our AirBnB. We had some cheese and crackers for dinner and blogged and watched a little TV before going to bed. Tomorrow we leave Glasgow and head north into the Highlands. It should be a nice day.