Glasgow

Have half an hour at a library below The Modern Art Gallery. Before we left Coventry visited the Transport Museum for a quick whizz around all the old bikes, cars buses and tractors. Caught our train to Birmingham News St. This was a regular train and stopped at all stations. It was only a short journey. Birmingham New Street, was just a short stop to change trains. Managed this without too much fuss and found our reserved seats to Glasgow. It was well worth the small extra expense to travel first class. We arrived in Glasgow at about 9.30pm but it is still daylight. The train travelled very fast but the green, rolling landscapes with crop or cattle was very picturesque, particularly as the mists drifted in. We arrived to light rain but after the heat of London we were not complaining. Our Hotel Alexander Thomson was quite close to Central Station in easy walking/wheeling distance. We were surprised when we opened our room- not only did it have a huge bedroom but a sitting room with a flat screen TV so we could have watched different programmes if we had wished. It also had a bath and iron - luxuries for a mid priced hotel.
We wasted a bit of time in the morning finding Tourist Information. When we did discover it we had to wait for it to open. With helpful directions we then caught the local bus to the Burrell Collection. This entailed a long walk through a wooded park but was well worth the effort. There is usually a courtesy bus but not on Sundays. We are not lacking in exercise. The Burrell Collection is that of one man - a canny Scot from a Shipping family. He donated this collection to Glasgow with provision that this be housed in a new building that must incorporate rooms from his house and include his collection of sections of ancient buildings etc. The resultant building is beautifully designed and I particularly liked the way the rear galleries where set right against the woodland so you had a wall of windows giving a green backdrop to all the ancient sculptures. We arrived just in time to have an outstanding guided tour by a most passionate and knowledgeable guide, Maeve Mc Guinn. This took over an hour and a half but was fantastic. She dealt mostly with his ancient sculptures, Asian ceramics and medieval tapestries. After lunch we admired the exquisite embroideries from the 17th - 19th centuries and then discovered a small but excellent painting section of Chardins, Manets, Degas and Cezanne. If you travel to Glasgow this is a must. Afterwards we had another walk to
the relatively nearby historic Pollok house. This had a beautiful formal garden with hedged parteres filled with vibrant begonias with the red and pinks complementing the greens. It is strange to see these beautiful flowers growing outside as in Ballarat, the Festival of my childhood, in which they were all admired behind glass. We then had the long walk to the bus - elephantitis is back again with ugly swollen ankles. We asked the driver to let us off in the city near George Square but he forgot so we did a long trip around suburban Glasgow - not a really attractive city. We eventually returned and hopped on the tourist hop on and hop off bus. This gave us a more attractive view of Glasgow and its new redevelopment. We had tea at 'Jamie's Italian' Jamie Oliver's restaurant in George Square. This had only been open for a week and was a new building behind an historic facade. The food was great and not overly expensive. We then caught the hop on bus home to watch the World Cup final in our lounge room. The best thing about Glasgow Modern Gallery was this computer.
We are now off to Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum.
love
Jo and Rog