Day 6 Working Man’s Glasgow

Our next stop after Edinburgh was Glasgow.  It only takes about an hour to drive over so it was a shot day on the bus.  Compared to Edinburgh Glasgow is working class city.  Up until the 90s most of the city would have been considered working class.  In the late 90s they started reinvigorating the city towards tourism, a developed downtown and upper class shopping.  

We started the tour at George square.  Like many European cities of the past the square was used as a stockyard and butchery.  Today many statues of the cities past politicians, writers and namesakes stand around the square along with another WWI monument. 

We proceeded to walk down the road to a statue of the Duke of Wellington.  Many of us had seen pictures of the statue before abed it was not because of how famous he was but because of his adornment.  The Duke has a construction cone on his head.  Basically awesome.  The town certainly has a sense of humorous about themselves.  For many years the police would take the cone down but it would always be back on in the morning so they gave up on keeping the Duke sans hat.  

 Behind the Duke is a former home of someone that had too much money.  The home is now home to Glasgow's modern art museum which was formerly a home.  I'm not a big fan of most modern art and that museum did not change my opinion.  The best thing in there was sculptures that looked like the ice cream at the top of a cone.

I wish I would have bought a post card of the Duke in the shop but I suppose that I remain consistent with my non buyers remorse.  Along with not buying any tartan scarves in Edinburgh, there were too many options.

 A few of us then walked over to the city cathedral.  It wouldn't be a European city without one.  This one was one of the most impressive that I have seen.  The upper level was huge.  The stained glass murals were probably 20 feet high each.  My guess that there was at least 20 of them.  Not only was that but there a whole lower level that had a variety of rooms for a variety of ceremonies.  Even if you are not supposed to take photos inside I did anyways. 

From there we grabbed a very authentic Glasgow meal of an overpriced Mexican burrito.  Just what I thought my Scotland experience would be.  Oh well.

 Most of the group headed back to the bus up to a whiskey distillery.  I've been to breweries before so I had some level of what to expect.  We started with a dram of single malt whiskey that most people couldn't even finish.  We walked around the distillery with our guide who explained all the steps of making it.  She also told us that they used to have the Royal seal on the bottle because the queen mum used to order and serve it.  Gotta love a 100 year old lady who still likes her whiskey.

The drive back the distillery was beautiful as it could be considered part of the Scottish highlands and lowlands.  But before heading back into Glasgow we drove up into the highlands to Loch Lomond.  Just like the song, you take the high road and I take the low road and I'll meet you at Loch Lomond.  So yes.  I saw a Loch in Scotland.  Bryn for the win!

 Our bus dropped us off at the hotel in what seemed to be the Indian part of town.  Let’s just say that our accommodations were not the Ritz but they weren't hostels either.

Our regular guide Tim told us about a comedy club in town so we all headed that way for a show.  A group of girls and I ended up at a small local pub where I ordered a toastie.  Basically a grilled cheese with onion tomato and bell peppers with a side salad. I only paid £2.95 for it and it was the best thing that I had outside our paid meals and Oink. Nothing fancy but it was great with a little hard cider.

After dinner we went to the comedy club called The Stand.  There was a sub par warm-up guy with 4 other comedians that came over to Glasgow from Edinburgh fringe.  He first guy was an Aussie like half of our group so he played to that really well.  The next were two women and they were both excellent.  The last guy was probably the worst.  About 3/4 of the audience was from out the UK and if he had been paying attention to the last couple of acts he would have known that most of his jokes were not going to make much sense to us.  Plus he looked like an old crazy Harry Potter without the glasses which I couldn't get over.  About 2 1/2 good acts for £10 was a good value.

Back to the hotel to sleep off an interesting but not spectacular day in Glasgow. The next day we would cruise across the sea to Ireland.  I suppose most cities would be a letdown after Edinburgh.