In my trip to northern England and Scotland in 2010 I took the train up from Liverpool to Glasgow. I had one day in Glasgow on my own, before "Marcy Queen of Scots" joined me there. I have always heard that Glasgow is the vibrant but grimy sister to refined Edinburgh, but coming from Manchester and Liverpool, I was pleasantly surprised by this hilly city - though some areas were largely abandoned, it seemed in no less better shape than Manchester, for instance. It has gracious open spaces, lots of well kept pedestrian streets, and some fabulous architecture. It's tiny, creaky subway seems largely a lost opportunity, but is very charming nonetheless.
Photo List (Total 494 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Central city (118 photos) - This large group of photos covers the central city, starting with George Square and the city hall and ending up at the somewhat depressing area around our hotel down on Argyle Street. In the middle, it covers the Gallery of Modern Art, the lovely pedestrian only Buchanan Street, the St. Enoch shopping centre, views from the top of the Lighthouse (a Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed building incorporating a slight tower), and many general street scenes including lots of pedestrian walks. At the end, after our hotel, is an area that remains partially derelict, but this is not representative of the central city as a whole.
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East side walk (109 photos) - This is the oldest section of Glasgow, and mostly covers the first walk I took with Marcy in the city. The gallery starts at Glasgow Cross in Saltmarket, continues to St Andrew's in the Square, one of Glasgow's most significant neo-Classical churches, and through the Glasgow Green with it's lovely Winter Gardens and the People's Palace. After this, it moves north through an industrial and generally abandoned area to the splendid Glasgow Necropolis and the lovely Cathedral. When we started this walk, the sky was completely gray, and it gradually brightened by the time we were at the Cathedral. However, I retraced my steps under some gorgeous blue skies later, so the early photos in the gallery are either gray or blue, depending.
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Garnet Hill and Sauciehall Street (30 photos) - This area, laying between the central city and Kelvingrove, is notably mostly for the Glasgow School of Art, by the famous Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and so this gallery contains mostly photos of that. It also includes some various other pics of the neighbourhood, of Sauciehall Street, and of a tea house, also designed by Mackintosh.
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Kelvingrove (60 photos) - The large and beautiful Kelvingrove Park has been the site of three international exhibitions, one in 1901 at the opening of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. This rollicking, old-style museum with its massive organ, was extremely entertaining, and I returned to it twice, first on my own, and again with Marcy. These photos capture the museum, the park grounds, some museums and buildings on the grounds of the nearby University of Glasgow, and a few shots of the immediate neighbourhood.
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Botanic Gardens (78 photos) - Marcy and were warned against visiting the Botanic Gardens, by a server in a restaurant who wrinkled his nose on their mention. When we arrived - on Great Western Road a short walk from Kelvingrove - we found them to be exquisite. One glasshouse - the Kibble Palace - is beautiful for it's restored elegance. The other glasshouse was maniacally overflowing with plant life, it felt as though if you were to bring just one little fern inside the whole thing would blow in an orgy of green. Lots of plants in this set, which also includes small bits of our walk to the gardens, and our walk beside the River Kelvin afterwards.
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River Clyde (57 photos) - Several visits to the river that bisects Glasgow are included here. The gallery moves from the east, where little rejuvenation of the riverside is apparent and many buildings are abandoned, through the central city, where a cluster of humdrum towers dominates the riverside at the International Financial Services District, to the west, where the riverside is a major area for rejuvenation. In this latter area, I took a walk west to see some new attractions built together on each side of the river. These included the silvery Clyde Auditorium, and the silvery Science Centre, but not yet the silvery Riverside Museum Complex, which was only under construction, but I saw this at a distance. I also saw a few pleasing bridges, BBC Scotland, and housing.
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South of the River Clyde (23 photos) - I headed down below the river to see one of Charles Rennie Macintosh's buildings, the Scotland Street School (now a museum). I found the building easily enough after exiting the Scotland Road subway station, but the rest of the area was a mess. Though the subway follows Scotland Street some distance, there appeared to be almost nothing else along it that was functioning, it was just a big ugly traffic funnel. Worse, they're building an expressway nearby, that actually runs almost right over one of the city's few subway stations. Though the school is lovely, this gallery does not show Glasgow at its best.
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Transit shots (19 photos) - This includes a few photos in two of Glasgow's train stations, followed by several photos of Glasgow's tiny, circular subway, which is certainly one of the world's cutest. Tiny trains, tiny platforms, the scale of it is something I have never seen before. Given that it opened in 1896, it seems a shame that they never expanded it. Marcy and I were chided over an intercom system for taking photos in one station, but it didn't stop us from documenting the subway adequately.
