Glasgow, Scotland, June 25, 2022

 Saturday, June 25, 2022

We ate snacks for breakfast and then walked to the Tenement House. It was up on a hilltop and we passed the Jewish Heritage Center and also discovered a lovely viewpoint. 

A mural thanking the healthcare workers for their Covid service

Jewish synagogue

The Tenement House was fascinating. I highly recommend it if you ever get a chance to visit Glasgow. The Tenement House was lived in by Ms. Agnes Toward from 1911 to 1965 and it has been kept in the original condition with many original artifacts. I love history and this is like stepping back in time. Tenements had a common entry with a common courtyard and laundry area. Residents had specific days to do their laundry so that everyone had a chance to use the laundry facilities. Residents were responsible to keep the entries clean and tidy and neighbors all knew each other and kept an eye on all the children. There was a sense of community in tenement buildings that is sadly lacking in apartment buildings today.

Coal fireplaces

Original tile work

Washroom and toilet

The coal fired kitchen stove

The front of the Tenement House

After we left the Tenement House we walked to the Mitchell Library. It has a large genealogy department and the helpful librarian showed me a useful website called Scotland's People.

Love Mural - at a bridal store

delicious mussels

For lunch we went to Stravaigins and I had a cider and awesome mussels. One of Pounce's strengths is her ability to navigate. She is wonderful at looking up maps on her phone and getting us where we need to go. She has an internal sense of direction that is second to none. I probably relied on her too much, but I will admit that it was nice to have a partner with that skill set. She is the one that found this restaurant on her phone.

The city coat of arms

bridge over River Kelvin

After lunch we walked over to the Botanical Gardens. Pounce works for a landscaping company in the summers and was interested in seeing the gardens. I was amazed at how huge they were.

Kibble Palace at the Botanical Gardens

Kibble Palace

Poisonous plant section

A wall for mason bees, the natural pollinators

For dinner we went to a bar called The 78. I had a salad and roasted red pepper soup with a half pint. Then we headed back to the hotel. It had been a full day with over 27,000 steps and my feet were hurting. I had gotten a notice that ScotRail would be on strike tomorrow, which had been our plan to get us to the West Highland Way start in Milngavie so I arranged to have an Uber driver pick us up to take us to Milngavie in the morning. We believed we had figured out our luggage. Our hotel room was warm and it was noisy outside with the window opened for air so I downloaded a white noise app, put in my earbuds and slept quite well.

Glasgow, Scotland, June 24, 2022

Friday, June 24, 2022

When Pounce and I got up we had a heart to heart talk. We decided to stay in Glasgow two more days instead of starting the West Highland Way. We still needed to figure out how to bounce our extra bag and it was supposed to rain the next two days. Staying longer in Glasgow would also solve our problem of arriving at the proper time to Ewich House for our reservation. But we did decide to move to a hotel on the west side that was a bit more upscale than the Eurohostel with actual wifi in our room so we could more easily plan.

We made a two night reservation at a hotel called the Devonshire and packed up our backpacks. We walked over to where the tour bus stop was and since we still had our receipts from the bus tour the previous day we were able to extend it to a second day for only a pound more. We rode the tour bus over to the Devonshire and this time I could actually understand the tour guide and it was like a whole new tour! 

The Devonshire Hotel

It was too early to check in but they had a luggage closet we were able to store our backpacks in and we set out to explore the University of Glasgow which was only a couple blocks from our hotel. It was graduation day and we heard bagpipes and saw students in graduation gowns and men in kilts. I learned about the Antonine Wall which was further north than Hadrian's Wall and had been built by the Romans.

Bus tour views

Riverside Museum

University of Glasgow

Physicist Lord Kelvin

Kelvingrove Art Museum

The Psalmist

University of Glasgow

Huh.  Reid (Reed) is Scottish. 

One would hope

Bowing Green

The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 and is the fourth oldest university in the English speaking world. While there I saw a plaque on the wall about Thomas Reid. Although a DNA test revealed I'm 65% Scottish, Welsh, Irish, I did not realize part of those Scottish roots were from my Reed side of the family. Thomas Reid founded the Scottish School of Common Sense Philosophy. Interestingly, he advocated for education to be free from religious and political biases.

Next we caught the tour bus back to Buchanan Street to take the Clockwork Orange Subway. The subway opened in 1896 and is the third oldest subway in the world after the London and Budapest subways.

running out of time

The Clockwork Orange Subway

You drive on the left and walk on the left!

Tea at the Mackintosh at the Willow

People Make Glasgow

I was finally able to get some cash out of an ATM! Then we had tea at Mackintosh at the Willow. I had the 1903 tea blended specifically for that restaurant with a berry tart. The building was designed by Scottish artist Charles Renne Mackintosh and is his last surviving teashop. It originally opened in 1903. I really like his style. It is a mix of art nouveau with Japanese influences and inspired by floral motifs. 

We walked back to our hotel and checked in and tried to figure out the luggage transfer. Part of the problem was that without a specific end destination the luggage transfer service would not take our luggage. We finally booked a campsite at the Glen Nevis Campground so we would have an end point and destination. Since it was only 12 pounds, if we cancelled or missed the reservation it would not be as expensive as losing a hotel room. Then we had to email to ask  them to hold our bag for us since it would probably arrive before we would.

We ended the day with dinner at a Thai Restaurant. It felt good to have a plan finally figured out.

Pounce quote of the day regarding our luggage transfer problems: "Here's the box and here's us. We just keep walking around looking for the door."

Glasgow, Scotland, June 23, 2022

 June 23, 2022

I slept well and woke up around 7:30am. We went to breakfast down in the bar and there were lots of good choices. We sat by a girl with a terrible cold and congestion which made me uncomfortable. Cathe and I are vaccinated against Covid, but Covid was on the rise. During our time in Scotland, one in seventeen people had Covid. Unfortunately, Cathe came down with a cold a few days after we got to Scotland and was congested for almost a week. I caught it as well for about three days. Was it actually Covid? We never tested ourselves, so we don't know.

After breakfast we walked Buchanan to find a post office. I decided to mail a post card to John every day. We also wanted to explore trying to mail our extra things to ourselves at the end of the West Highland Way trail. However, we discovered that Scotland has no general delivery option. We returned to the outdoor store where Pounce returned her belt for a narrower one and her umbrella for a little purse. We both bought fuel for our hiking stoves.

We picked up groceries and also took a bus tour around Glasgow after we ate salads from Spriggs on the steps of the Modern Art Museum. The bus driver had such a Scottish accent that I only understood about one in four words.

Modern Art Museum

Murals from a mural competition a few weeks ago

We did more grocery shopping and then had dinner at Sloans - a super cute bar with outside alley seating. I had a salad with haggis and tatties croquettes. Pounce had a beef pie with salad. Very savory!

Dinner at Sloans. Cheers!

We came back to the hostel and did laundry in the coin operated laundry machines. We were trying to figure out how to bounce our extra things to the end of the trail and began to explore luggage services. We had a reservation for Ewich House in a week but figured we'd probably be beyond that point and would have to possibly take a bus or train back to it. We had tried not to make many reservations in advance because we did not want to be too tied down to a specific schedule and for the most part this plan worked well for us, especially since later on the trains were on strike and could have derailed us if we'd had firm plans. The plan was to take the train to Milngavie the next morning to start the West Highland Way.

Jet lag was kicking in and I had a hard time getting to sleep and finally got up and went down to the dining room at 11:30pm so I could call John using wifi calling. It was annoying not to have wifi in the privacy of my own room. I signed up for AT&T's international plan of unlimited internet and wifi calling for $10 a day before I left for Scotland. It worked well if we had wifi but if we didn't I had no service. 

There were several groups of young people in the dining room. One group seemed to be from Spain. I really like the international feel of a hostel and I usually do not mind roughing it a bit. The wonky wifi was a problem, though, especially since it made planning our bounce box even more challenging.

Glasgow, Scotland, June 22, 2022

June 22, 2022

We landed in Heathrow Airport in London at 6:30am. It was a bright morning but Pounce and I both felt pretty jet lagged. We had some coffee and then ate breakfast at a restaurant in the airport. I explored the Harry Potter store which was full of things that I thought about buying, but I did not want to have to haul them all around through Scotland for the next three weeks. I decided to stop back by the store on the flight out in July.

We catnapped on some uncomfortable chairs in the airport until 11:25am when we went to our gate for our flight to Glasgow. I had a feeling we'd be delayed and once we were on the plane, we were, due to unloading luggage of missing passengers. Unbeknownst to us, because of a combination of lack of workers and the highest volume of travelers since before Covid, Heathrow was to become a nightmare travel experience this summer.

As we flew to Glasgow I watched the countryside out the window. I could see the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The landscape seemed be fairly flat with lots of fields and some small towns. There were occasional stands of trees and a few rivers.

We arrived in Glasgow at 3:00pm and I put my pack together, stowing my Osprey pack bag inside my backpack. For some reason I could not get any cash out of the airport ATM although Cathe could. I was worried and frustrated by this but Cathe loaned me some pounds until I was able to find an ATM that worked a few days later. We caught a bus to downtown Glasgow and walked to our hostel. I gazed around me in wonder as we walked, absorbing the scenery and culture of Scotland. The cars driving on the other side of the street kept me on my toes but I was surprised that everything seemed, not familiar, but not usually foreign, either.

The Scottish accent, on the other hand, was difficult for me to understand. As we walked along and I overhead various conversations in the street I had a hard time recognizing that people were even speaking English. The Scottish brogue has a musical cadence to it that makes it seem like a completely different language. I enjoyed listening to it, but wished I could understand it better.

Eurohostel mural

We arrived at the Eurohostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before and was looking forward to the experience. It was very affordable at only 45 pounds a night and Pounce and I had our own private rooms. The halls were a confusing warren of  random swinging "fire" doors with strobing epileptic inducing hallway lights. The bathroom was across the hall and the shower was the kind that was warm for three minutes and then turned tepid. Downstairs was a large comfortable dining room and kitchen that we could use and hang out in. Since that was the only place I could get wifi I hung out there on multiple occasions.

After we settled in and rested for awhile, we ventured out to explore. I like Glasgow. It has a gritty, real feeling to it and the local street artists have decorated many of the walls with amazing murals. We found an outdoor store and Pounce bought an umbrella and a belt. We then had dinner at the Drum and Monkey Restaurant. Pounce and I shared a stovie (beef in root veggies) and a Corkie pie (shredded lamb with a haggis topping) Both were delicious. I also had a hard cider. 

It is odd to me that I have never seen a Scottish Restaurant in America. I've eaten in Irish restaurants and the food is actually quite similar. Scottish food is delicious! Pounce eats gluten free and the gluten free options in Scotland were astonishing. Way better than in the United States.

After dinner we wandered a bit more before heading back to the hostel to plan our food carries for the West Highland Way. We determined that only about a one day food supply would be needed at most.

The Horseshoe bar, famous for being the longest bar in the world

Buchanan Street, a pedestrian walk way

Princes Square

Clockwork Orange Subway Entrance

The Eurohostel is close to the River Clyde. Across the street was a statue of Spaniard Dolores Iburrurl memorializing Glasgow residents who joined the fight against fascism in Spain in the 1930s. It featured a quote by her, "Better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees."

The river Clyde across the street from our hostel

Better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees

Pounce quote of the day: "The benefit of traveling together is that only one of us has to think at a time."