Glasgow

Happy Sunday!

Yesterday my sweet friend Allison and I ventured to Glasgow!

Glasgow is Scotland's largest city at about 6-700,000. Although not the capital, it has several interesting stereotypes or words associated with it. When researching Glasgow, or mentioning it to one who has been before, the most common words or phrases mentioned are:

Industrial. Victorian. Modern Art. Gothic. Not as Pretty as Edinburgh. Gaelic.

I can say all were true! Allison and I met super early in the morning before the sun rose, and after staying up a bit too late to work on an essay I was half hoping we could reschedule the trip and I could avoid the cold darkness outdoors and fall back into a cozy warm bed. However, my thoughts quickly changed! We grabbed some breakfast in town and took an early bus to Glasgow. It's about 2.5-3 hours and it was wonderful to sleep on the bus! Glasgow is on the West Coast of Scotland, so while it doesn't quite border the Atlantic Ocean, and we didn't see any body of water, we did successfully cross from the East to the West Coast of Scotland yesterday! The bus stopped in small towns along the way and picked up loads of elderly women all wearing long coats and red cloth poppies for Remembrance Day. In between my sleepy thoughts, I kept hearing the word 'Glasgow' pronounced in conversations surrounding me. I determined that the pronunciation is hard to grasp. It's most accurately pronounced GLAAZ-GOO. The Glasweigan accent is quite gaelic, which actually is the official language in parts of Western Scotland. With my American accent though, GLAAZ-GOO just doesn't work or sound at all natural. It sort of completely transforms the accent and is just a strange language jump. GLAAZ-GO seems to work better. GLASS-GOUW seems to bring out the American accent more and probably shouldn't be used.

As the bus drove into the city I first noticed the industrialness. Granted it was a grey day, but the grey concrete buildings just blended in. Like London, Glasgow really developed and grew during Great Britain's industrial revolution.

The not-as-beautiful side of Glasgow.

Once at the bus station, we planned to begin our visit with the Glasgow School of Art, a well-known art school (I think Scotland's only!) known for modern art and it's uniquely beautiful architectural design in the buildings. Immediately though, our map just wasn't pointing us in the right direction. Surrounded by tall concrete buildings, we just weren't in the right place. We found a nearby post office, and waited in line behind some elderly gentlemen with the strongest Scottish/Glasweigan accents we had ever heard. Extremely gaelic, they were having a good time speaking with the post office clerk, and both Allison and I were curious about what was going on and being said. We had no idea. Soon, a woman behind us in line with the help of the post office clerk pointed in the correct direction and both were extremely friendly.

Passing through several different areas, Allison and I both came to find that the Glasgow we were seeing was a mix of Victorianism with some industrialism and then some modernism. Like much of the buildings in Scotland, sandstone was everywhere, but in some places carved in more Victorian ways with curls and faces, and in others much more modern with squares of stained glass.

The Bank of Scotland.

 

Once at the Glasgow School of Art, we found we were too late to jump into a tour group and that the tours were quite expensive. We walked around the outside of the buildings a bit, and found an art school shop where students in the school sell pieces of their artwork whatever medium it may be. These shops tend to be an absolute weakness of mine. Thankfully, I kept my purchases to a minimum, but I find it so inspirational and creative to view what others create and believe to be art. The shop included quite a bit of history on the school and several photos of the architecture of the buildings. Unlike St. Andrews, Glasgow School of Art is relatively newer, coming about in the 1860s, and was created to serve Scotland in ways of design and architecture.

From there, it was about lunchtime and we headed to the Willow Tea Room to enjoy high tea. The Willow Tea Rooms (there are two in Glasgow) were designed solely by Charles Rennie MacKintosh. A Glasweigan architect who designed much of the city, MacKintosh's lifespan perfectly spans industrialism and victorianism in Glasgow. His architecture is very square. It includes a lot of stained glass, too.

At the Willow Tea Room

 

Allison and I split the high tea which was quite delicious, but not quite enough. We both had a small chunk of sandwich, a sweet, and some tea but we treated it as a tasty snack. :)

 

Once we left, the streets had grown very crowded and we found we were in one of Glasgow's main shopping districts. With no Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping here is in full swing and Glasgow supposedly has the best shopping in the U.K. after London. Servicemen and women were everywhere too selling poppies for Remembrance Day, which is today. It seemed like everyone had one pinned to their jacket. I bought one and think it later fell off somewhere. It's in some of our pictures, but then disappears completely!

I didn't mean for this picture to showcase solely people smoking, but I can say that Scotland (from what I've witnessed eaveryday) does have a TON of smokers. While there is a smoking ban in all indoor buildings, it does feel like on a daily basis there is no way to avoid breathing it in on the streets.

Christmas shopping crowds.

 

Allison and I headed next to Glasgow's Cathedral, the only of Scotland's cathedrals to make it out of the Protestant reformation intact. The St. Andrews Cathedral has been featured here before and that was once even larger than the Glasgow Cathedral and was a major Catholic pilgrimmage, but after several attacks during the Protestant Reformation, now a few walls are barely standing.

Prior to coming to Glasgow, I had no idea that there was a Cathedral there and had no expectations. What we found though, was certainly for me the most memorable part of the day. It was incredibly breath-taking, and can only really be compared to perhaps some of the major cathedrals in Paris. Allison and I approached from the Christmas shopping mobs and found that as we walked fewer and fewer people surrounded us. By the time we made it to the Cathedral, there were few others and we enjoyed the sight with no crowds.

Just as we were almost at the Cathedral, I stopped and took a few photographs of these yellow trees. They were so bright and reminded me of fall foliage.

At the Cathedral!

This was right before we entered. A large cemetary stretched all beyond the Cathedral and on either side. It's called a 'Necropolis' and was so truly beautiful and spooky. The November grey sky, the graves everywhere and these trees dripping with down-turned branches added to the aura. 

Looking out at the Necropolis.

So Scotland!

 

 

 

Poppies for Remembrance Sunday.

The Cathedral included two floors and several small rooms like this one.

Tombs were also along the floor, this one was such a polished gold.

 

Overall, it was so incredible. At one point I said to Allison, "How can there be so much beauty in one building?" After exitting, Allison made a comment about how the Cathedral was now Protestant. I was really surprised and thought immediately back to the lengthy visit and walk-through we had just finished. I had seen what I had thought was Catholic literature, a cross that I imagined was used for adoration, and while I didn't see a tabernacle, the entire Cathedral just had such a Catholic feel - no doubt from the ornateness. I wasn't totally sure if I believed that it was now a Protestant Church, and my Catholic defenses - which I didn't know I had - were completely questioning this too and trying to believe that it couldn't be true. I knew that the Cathedral remained intact during the reformation, but could it really completely be transformed into a Protestant Church? Once we went to the front of the Cathedral, our question was answered. Marked in large letters on a sign welcoming all to the Cathedral were the words 'Church of Scotland.' That certainly was something that surprised me.

 

After some exploration of the Necropolis,

some more outdoor views of the Cathedral,

and spotting this Westie (West Highland Terrier) that I wanted to scoop up and take with me,

we ventured off to grab a sandwich and then to the Gallery of Modern Art!

 

Oh, and here's an image of me on a street corner, poppy intact!

 

As we grew closer to the Gallery of Modern Art, I wasn't completely sure how far we were away, when I saw this statue that made me laugh:

We then learned it was the official symbol of the Gallery of Modern Art, and we were right outside the Museum.

We didn't stay too long as we were soon to catch our bus back to St. Andrews, but it was a very cool and free museum full of modern (and perhaps at times, questionable) artwork!

The interior of the Museum

As we exitted.

An ornate door in Glasgow.

A police box!

Near the bus station. :)

 

Overall, it was an amazing trip and a city worth seeing! The ride back was filled with darkness and elderly Scottish women with several Christmas shopping bags. :)