Glasgow

I went up to Glasgow at the weekend with Caroline. It’s a place I have only been to once before. That was with work and I only saw the inside of pubs the whole evening! This time we went on the train and arrived at noon. We wandered down to the hotel, which was handily placed on George Street and left our bags then set off to explore the city. We decided to take one of the open-topped tourist buses – a bit of a clichéd idea but as it turned out an excellent way to get a feel for what a city is like and which bits of it you would like to see more of. The tour lasted about an hour and a quarter and the good thing about the ticket was that it lasted for two days and you could hop on and off as you pleased. We then went looking at the main shopping areas and decided we needed to eat or else dinner (lunch, whatever) would start to merge with tea (dinner blah, blah). Unfortunately, not knowing where all the good bars and restaurants were located we couldn’t find anywhere suitable and ended up in Burger King! Not an auspicious start to the weekend! Having eaten we went to the McLellan Gallery which houses some of the exhibits from the Kelvingrove, which is undergoing renovation and will not open again until next year. There were some fine examples of Rennie Macintosh’s work as well as paintings by the ‘Glasgow Boys’ group of painters. Some fantastic Italian works from the 15th and 16th Century are also on display as well as paintings by Rembrandt, Whistler and Lowry. A really enjoyable little gallery and I felt justified in suggesting a swift pint having done the cultural aspect so well. We found a decent boozer in the ‘Drum and Monkey’ and refreshed ourselves with some Hoegaarden and Deuchars IPA.

On the way back we had a look around to see what was on offer restaurant-wise and found what looked like a good Tapas bar which was already getting busy at around 6:30pm. We went back and got ready for the evening and I was overjoyed to be offered a flyer on the way down for a bar – I’ve not been offered one of those for years! As a reward we decided to honour them with our presence. It was a bar next to a Wetherspoons and it seemed to be trying to be a similar sort of place, albeit with loud music. Even the menu seemed very Wetherspoons-ish. We decided after one drink that it was a bit too dark and noisy for us so we would try the Wetherspoons next door. Out we came, headed next door only to find it was the same place! No wonder it seemed very like a Wetherspoons! It must be my age.

We walked to the Tapas bar which by this time was heaving. Fortunately the guy on the door took our names and told us to return at 9:30pm and we should have a table. 2 drinks at ‘All Bar One’ (one a particularly good pint of Paulaner lager from Munich) and we were back at the Tapas. “Just get a drink at the bar and we’ll be with you shortly” was the recommendation so I sampled the Cruzcampo and true to their word we were at a table within 5 minutes. After a bit of debate we decided to get seven Tapas dishes between us so we had a paella with chorizo, a lovely lamb casserole, some pickled anchovies, a chicken dish with sage, some meatballs, some potato and sweetcorn croquettes and some King Prawns with garlic. They were all delicious and the whole meal came to less than £25. We would certainly go back and sample some of the items we couldn’t manage this time. Back to ‘All Bar One’ for another drink before heading back to the hotel at last orders.

The next day we decided we would go to the Barras for the market held on Saturdays and Sundays. We got the tourist bus up there and it was then time to get some breakfast. Into a Greasy Joe’s for two bacon rolls and two mugs of tea. £3.20 – bargain. Halfway through doing the rashers on the griddle the bloke serving took them off and dumped them in the deep fat fryer with the chips before putting them back on the griddle after a minute or so! I had heard that lots of food in Scotland was deep-fried but I hadn’t realised the extent of it. We had been told that the Baras would be quite an experience and it was. There are dozens of stalls selling copied CDs and DVDs and other software and loads of blokes walking round selling tobacco and cigarettes. It seemed like every man, woman and child in the Gorbals with access to a PC was selling counterfeit goods! After a while though, all the stalls merged into one and we went off for the tourist bus again. We wanted to do the Hunterian up at the University of Glasgow but unfortunately it shuts on Sundays. We will have to see the Macintosh collection another time. As it was a gorgeous day we decided to head up to the West End and visit the Botanic Gardens. The West End is quite different to the City Centre – a bit more bohemian. You can tell it is a favoured haunt of the University academics. Some great shops too. The Gardens were interesting, even though I am not a gardening type at all. After a while we headed back to the city, having got a couple of tasty cakes from a fantastic deli. As our train was at 5:45pm we had a couple of drinks at a nice bar called The Ingram before getting a Sunday two course special at a Chinese. Just time for a farewell pint of Deuchars at the Ingram before collecting the bags and heading for the station.

We really enjoyed Glasgow and would definitely go back. There are still plenty of things to see that we didn’t have the chance to experience so therewill be no need to repeat anything (well, apart from The Ingram and the Tapas bar maybe!)

We had a weekend of culture of all sorts - culture and arts at the gallery, horticulture at the Botanic Gardens and sub-culture at the Barras!