My husband K got up at 6:30 and read. I managed to sleep until 8, even though I'd had some trouble sleeping due to getting too warm under the covers. When I got up it was 56° and cloudy.
We met our daughter J at 8:45 for breakfast. Since it was our last day in England, we all ordered the full English breakfast. Here, that meant sausage, hash browns, baked beans, egg, tomato, and mushroom, which is what it is most places. Supplemented with toast, our juices, and K's coffee and we had a fine breakfast. Oh, and lots of chatting with the lady from yesterday.
J got a message that her bag was being flown to Glasgow. We did not believe them.
When we went downstairs to leave, the lady took our keys. K made sure he signed the guest book and we were out at 10.
There was some sun as we took what seemed to be the flattest route to the train station. We got there at 10:14 and there was no one in the lounge area. We left K out on a bench with the luggage and headed for Booths, the grocery store attached to the train station.
They had so much! It seemed to serve the locals, as well as travelers. We checked out some aisles out of curiosity. There were some odd combinations.
We got some sandwiches- Booths Ploughman for Ł2.85, Caprese Salad Inspired for Ł3.65, Chicken Salad for Ł3. Diet Coke was Ł1.80, while Coke was Ł2. Pretzels were Ł1.50.
At 10:40, we were waiting with K. I noticed this nice painting.
At 10:50, we were on board the 10:53 to Oxenholme. There lots of people who'd gotten off the train, but there were a lot of people leaving Windermere, too. At 10:54, we were on our way.
The train arrived in Oxenholme at 11:15. It was easy to get to Platform 2. There we waited for the Trans-Pennine Express. While waiting, I chatted with a math teacher from Alberta, Canada.
At 11:30, we were on our way to Glasgow. Out the window, I could see some nice English countryside around Penrith. Sheep!
At 12:15, we "tucked into" our lunches, as they say in these parts. Definitely better than on the way to Windermere.
At 1:38, the train arrived at Glasgow Central. We noticed that no one checked our tickets at any point today. There were plenty of people in the station and I noticed once again its interesting interior.
We decided to make a pit stop before we headed out. On the way out, we noticed this really nice mosaic.
We went out the front doors of the station and turned left to go to Waterloo Street. J had booked a hotel not far from the train station with a room for 3. It was the Hotel Indigo. Her bag was not there, when we arrived at 2. Our room was ready, so we went up to 105 to dump our luggage and gather what we needed for exploring. It was a modern room with interesting lighting color choices.
We left at 2:50 and it was sunny and a warm 71°. As we made our way back toward the train station for shopping, we noticed these two interesting buildings. The modern one is the Spectrum Center. The older one had been built back in the day for a former distillers company.
When we went to a souvenir shop near the train station, I had the chance to take a picture of its front.
Our next stop was George Square with its statues honoring Scottish and some English luminaries. We did not visit all of them, but saw James Watt and Albert and Victoria as we entered the square. As usual, they showed no respect from man or bird.
We crossed the square to the City Chambers. In front of it was the cenotaph first erected to honor WWI war dead, but expanded to honor WWII as well.
Because they are both so important here, we went back to the center to see the tall column with Sir Walter Scott atop and the statue of Robert Burns.
After we left the square, our northeastern path took us past the University of Strathclyde with its many murals and Wonderwall. I found this about it:The "#Strathwonderwall" is along the main frontage of the Graham Hills Building. Originally known as "Marland House when owned by the General Post Office, it became known as Graham Hills in 1987, after it was acquired by the University and named after its principal at the time, Sir Graham Hills. It serves as one of the main lecture hall buildings in the campus (and will keep on doing so until 2018). The "Strathwonder" wall sports its own hashtag #Strathwonderwall to encourage students and other people to post their photos on social media sites. The wall contains paintings of figures such as Scottish engineer - John Logie Baird, the T.A.R.D.I.S from the popular British television series Doctor Who and even an illustration of Frankenstein´s Monster ...
Farther along, we saw this tall building with what turned out to be a Dansken equestrial telescope. I have no idea what it is on the other end of the building.
Past the university buildings, we came upon this lovely mural by Smug just before George Street turned into Duke. It depicted St. Enoch, who has a square in town, nursing her son St. Kentigern, known as St. Mungo. St. Mungo was a missionary to the Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde and founded Glasgow. He is, of course, the patron saint of the city.
Speaking of St. Mungo, we were headed to his cathedral or, more properly, Glasgow Cathedral. It was the next stop on the walking tour that we were following. The cathedral, built in the 1100's and supposedly over St. Mungo's tomb, is the only medieval cathedral on the Scottish mainland that survived the Protestant Reformation. Oh, they ripped out altars and took decorations off of the columns and they bricked up many of the windows, but the building survived. It has Gothic elements from an enlargement in the 1200's. In 1836, the state took over the property, which had been a parish kirk. By 1857, the state was taking care of the place, but it is still a Church of Scotland church, with services on Sundays.
I always feel a bit of melancholy, when I visit one of these churches that were taken from us during the Reformation. The violence done to these blessed places is just terribly depressing. Seeing the nave as it is now and what it would have been just really got me.
It was 4:10, when we went in and it was really busy, maybe because it was to close at 5. Anyway, we roamed around the nave, which was huge. They had a lot of nice stained glass that was relatively modern, of course. The last one- the only one I could identify- was "The Creation", which was done by Francis Spear in 1958 in the west wall.
When you looked at the columns in particular, you could see that they'd been damaged from removing the decoration.
The upper church was separated from the lower by something called a "pulpitum". Cradle Catholic and I've visited tons of churches, particularly old ones, and I've never heard of this. This one was special because it's a rare survivor from medieval times. Maybe that's why I've never heard of it.
K decided to go down to the crypt, but I couldn't and J stayed with me. He wasn't gone long. The exit was not the west door that we'd come in, but rather the side door. This gave us a brief look at the necropolis behind the cathedral.
Just to our left down Castle Street, we could see Provand's Lordship, which is the oldest house in Glasgow, having been built in 1471. It would have been neat to visit, but we didn't have the time.
Not much farther down Castle Street, we ran into Smug's depiction of a grown, modern St. Mungo. It was really quite impressive.
We passed this sign and I was surprised to see that orchestra's here do that. They do that back home with all kinds of movies.
Glasgow Cross is at the hub of the ancient royal burgh and now city of Glasgow, Scotland, close to its first crossing over the River Clyde. It marks the notional boundary between the city centre and the East End.
It was the meeting place of the Royal Burgh. Wikipedia again:
A royal burgh (burr-uh)) was a type of Scottish burgh which had been founded by, or subsequently granted, a royal charter. Although abolished by law in 1975, the term is still used by many former royal burghs.
At 4:53, we passed St. Andrew's in the Square. Boy, is Wikipedia helpful!
St Andrew's in the Square is an 18th-century category-A-listed former church in Glasgow, Scotland, considered one of the finest classical churches in Scotland, and now Glasgow's Centre for Scottish Culture, promoting Scottish music, song and dance. The church is in St Andrew's Square, near Glasgow Cross and Glasgow Green, on the edge of the City's East End.
We arrived at St. Andrew's Cathedral or the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of St. Andrew at 5:06 and found seats at the end of a pew for 5:15 Mass. It was fairly well attended. I'd looked forward to hearing the marvelous Scottish accent of the priest from the last visit hear and wanted J to hear it. Unfortunately, the priest was from Africa. Sigh.
Outside after 6:10, I found the coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Glasgow engraved on the pavement. The Latin means, "May the preaching of the Word flourish". As a reader at Mass at home, I like that.
We took a moment to cross the street and look at the River Clyde. That was K's grandfather's name. We looked east and west and took selfies, of course.
Our path took us up through St. Enoch Centre, a square where a carnival was going on. Looking at some of the rides with their Disney characters made we wonder if they were actually licensed. I suspected not, because I saw the word "Disney" nowhere on them.
We walked up the main shopping street, Buchanan, where the shops were closed, of course.
It was crowded when we arrived at 6:49, but we found a table near the entrance. It took us a bit, but we figured out that you ordered at the bar and told them your table number. The drinks came first, naturally. K ordered Fierce IPA and J got R Whites Raspberry Lemonade. I got the tasty Balmers Red Berries Cider.
Since K and J had seen the bar and the rest of the place, I was sent to order the warm chocolate brownie for Ł5.30 for dessert. After doing that, I stood in the line of decidedly not handicapped folks waiting to use the upstairs handicapped stall rather than go downstairs. I knew those stairs were not my friends.
We were back in our room at 8:50 and, of course, J's bag was not there. However, they did tell her it was in Scotland and would be delivered tomorrow.
The phone reported 13,457 steps for 4.3 miles.
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