Glasgoing

That bacon sandwich at the front there? That’s “the UK’s favourite” and cost only £1.20. It was salty and dry, which means I loved it 🙂

We’d slept for hours the night before, and yesterday being our only full day here took the chance to explore. I can recommend the local hop-on tourist bus; ours had a live narration and did a fine job not only showing us the city but helping us to decide which of the many sights to see in more detail.

Glasgow has many of these striking murals painted on the sides of buildings. Apparently they were done a few years back using spray paint only by an Australian artist to help beautify the city for the Commonwealth Games. This one shows the patron saint, Saint Mungo, as he may appear today. One of his miracles was apparently resurrecting a bird.

After the bus we went to the People’s Palace, which is a museum dedicated to life in Glasgow through the years. I particular enjoyed all the history of the Glaswegian tenement buildings and what life was like for those that endured the overcrowding of the city 50+ years ago.

Afterwards we (literally) followed a marching band almost all the way to the Cathedral and the large ancient graveyard beyond.

It had become warmer by now (~75F) and the climb to the top of the Necropolis was tiring and sweaty. We ended up walking over 25k steps in total yesterday – over about 9 hours – and collapsed in the room with loads of candy in the end 🙂

There is a lot more to see in this city, but we don’t have the time to see it. Today we head west…

We’re Here

It’s so easy now to travel. A few clicks on websites, a drive to the airport and next thing you’re on the plane. The whole trip from our door to our Glasgow hotel was about 14 hours and couldn’t have been easier.

The hotel itself is pretty wild, and first impressions were that it seemed we were stepping into the set of 2001!

The room is small (cozy?) and comes with an iPad that wirelessly controls lights, the blinds, the TV, AC, everything. The lights in particular are extremely adjustable:

Also the room comes with blackout curtains because of the long days. It was light when we went to bed and when we woke up!

We didn’t do much other than the explore the shopping district yesterday, which was busy and loaded with people. The weather was warm and bright, with rain only coming in early in the evening.

Today (it’s Sunday morning) we’re planning to go full-on tourist and visit some attractions. And that will start with a bacon sandwich…

Insert Haggis Joke In The Comments!

Tomorrow we’re going to Scotland!

We’re going to be focusing on the west and north of the country: the highlands and islands and more remote regions. We’re looking forward to rocky coasts, beautiful scenery and lots of rain 🙂

Eventually we’ll end up in Orkney, which will be the northernmost latitude we’ve ever visited and will have over 20 hours of sunlight!

Needless to say I’ll blog as I can, although given some of our hotels have already told us they have no cell service this may not be daily! As usual though you can expect to follow our exploits here…

…and in your mailboxes 🙂