Okay, the street is realy spelled Sauchiehall or something like that, but it pretty much summed up the whole city of Glasgow. There really wasn't anything to see there at all. We left the Cloisters at 4:30 Saturday morning and arrived in Glasgow around 8:00AM. When checking into the Hilton, we were given the keys to a room that was already occupied. (Strike 1)--On a bright note, the Sean McDonald look-alike we woke up, didn't want to punch Mike in the face, or at least we didn't stick around long-enough to find out! We finally got our room (ironically right next to the one we just tried) and took showers to freshen up. As we walked to the city center I could tell I wasn't really going to like it there, I even told Mike, but he told me to give it a chance. I have very good instincts about people and places, I either like them right off, or don't...and I'm barely ever wrong! I was certainly right about Glasgow. We took a Circle City Tour on a double-decker bus. Though it was raining, Mike insisted we sit outside...I only had a hooded sweatshirth with me, Mike had his windbreaker, so a little rain didn't bother him much!---I really need to teach him to be at least a LITTLE chivilrous. After our 1 hour 15 minute tour, we decided that there really wasn't a whole lot we'd want to see further, so we went to lunch I had 4 cups of hot tea because I was drenched and freezing cold. Then we felt bad that there wasn't anything to see, so we went to the Cathedral and to St. Mungo's Religious Museum. St. Mungo is the patron saint of Glasgow, and his crypt is in the cathedral---we couldn't find it---You'd think something like that would be marked. That night we decided to take the train to Edinburgh for Sunday as we weren't sure what there was going to be for us to do in Glasgow for another day.
Edinburgh was a great decision! It was really what I thought Scotland would be like. We started this day also doing the Double-Decker Tour Bus, and we saw lots of things we wanted to go back to, most notably Edinburgh Castle. After the tour, we trekked up to the castle, and had to wait in an hour long que, but it was worth it. The castle is situated on top of the city, so the the views from the top were breathtaking. The castle also housing the crown jewels of Scotland...not much to speak of, really just a sceptor and a crown, but crown jewels nonetheless. I have to say, I've seen more impressive jewels in the window at Tiffany's though.
Other than that, the castle was kind of transformed into various museums which was a little disappointing. For instance, they have the Scottish Military Museum, which holds pretty modern exhibits of the Scots in the Royal Army, etc. I was hoping to get a little more history of the castle and maybe some more swords and suits of armor. Nonetheless, it was really impressive architecturally.
On the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, which is the area from Edinburgh Castle to the Queens Residence whilst in Scotland (the name is escaping me), there were lots of shops with wonderful Scottish goods. I bought myself a kilt and some Christmas presents for the folks back home. Though I tried to get Mike to buy one too, we was having none of it! HaHa! It's funny--In Scotland, Edinburgh especially, men just randomly walk around in kilts--as if they were wearing normal trousers--on top they would have anything from a sports jacket w/ dress shirt to a football jersey...weird!
There was also a festival going on "The Fringe" there were tons of street performers and musicians, and my thrist for bagpipe music was certainly quenched! Mike had to pull me away from a group of 3 little boys playing pipes and drums! We did another loop on the tour bus to take some more pictures, and then we were back on the train to Glasgow.
Today we are just back in the Cloisters for a quick shower and then we're going to the Notting Hill Carnival which is supposed to attract 3million visitors every year. We've heard it's a bit cheesy, but they say it's something you've got to go to, just to say you went.
We're going to post some pictures as soon as we get them uploaded!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment