Glasgow and all Her Charms

Glasgow gets a bad rap.  We didn’t go to Edinburgh and I’m sure I would have been enchanted by it because I like those kinds of cities, but we just didn’t have time on this trip.
We had three days in Glasgow, which possibly seems like too many, but one night was dedicated to seeing Roger Waters (from Pink Floyd) in concert.  We wanted one full day between the concert ending and the trek beginning, to sleep in and relax. 

We stayed at a charming boutique hotel just above Glasgow Central Train Station, which is a rather rowdy part of the city.  Though we were 5 floors up, we could hear fights going on below us from roughly 10 PM to 3 AM every night.  We always travel with earplugs, so sleep wasn’t hugely disturbed, but it wasn’t a terribly safe part of the city, though we were never in any direct confrontations or danger. 

Glasgow is gritty.  It reminds me of a Scottish version of Butte, Montana.  Ian and I tend to enjoy a bit of that during daylight hours.  We spent several days walking the city from Hyndland, Kelvinbridge, Merchant City, Trongate, the Necropolis, over to Alexandra Park.  We met a lot of really fun, engaging people along the way.  The locals were always entertaining and LOVED that we spoke glowingly of their city, which doesn’t seem to get much love from outsiders.  Glaswegians as a whole are intensely proud and possibly a bit defensive.  We wanted them to know, “we get it. We like it here.” 

Some highlights: the street art murals everywhere, the hop-on-hop-off bus, Glasgow Green Park, Drum & Monkey Pub (best fish and chips of the trip).