Strathclyde Country Park Caravan Club Site, Bothwell, Glasgow

We cursed the Scottish weather on and off all day, even forewarned as we were to expect more rain. We caught the train into the city a little later than previous days, this one the train through from Edinburgh, then spent the first hour or so attending to errands in the city, including dealings with O2 who I admit are much easier to deal with than Vodafone.

By the time we arrived at the Hunterian Art Gallery up in the Glasgow University, having caught the underground from St Enochs through to Hillsend, the morning was well on. Like the nearby Hunterian Museum, this houses bequested items once belonging to the celebrated ex-student William Hunter (1718 – 1783), a pathologist and anatomist, a lecturer and contributor to the Scottish Enlightenment of the late 18^th century, whose biography I read last year. 

The gallery is best known for its large collection of work by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, second only to that in Washington DC. There are also works by the Glasgow Boys and Scottish Colourists, referred to a few days ago, and an array of other artworks, some appreciated by us, and some not.

It was still raining when we completed our visit here, however we decided to brave the elements and walk down to the Riverside Museum beside the Clyde. En route we crossed a section of the Kelvin River where there are a series of small waterfalls, a pleasantly surprising feature in the middle of the city. 

The Riverside Museum is really excellent, a transport and maritime museum even superior to that in Hull whose praises we sang after visiting. 

It was designed by the late and famed Zaha Hadid, only opened back in 2011, and two years later awarded European Museum of the Year. In 2015, records show it was visited by almost 1.2 million, making it the fifth most popular attraction in Scotland and today it was packed out by visitors; a good mix of locals and tourists.

Berthed beside this impressive structure, a wave like titanium-clad building, is “The Tall Ship” a square rigger called “Glendee”, a 245 foot long three-masted barque launched on the river back in 1896. This is a rather quiet retirement for a vessel having circumnavigated the globe four times before being out to use for sail training. Today however we left the “Glendee” to the rain lovers, satisfied with viewing her from the dry interior of the upstairs museum gallery.

Within the museum there are buses, motorbikes, carriages, cars galore, prams, ships, and everything else you can connect with movement, and while these sort of places are more Chris’s cup of tea, I enjoyed the little stories attached to most of the exhibitions.

Satisfied that we had given the museum our best given the limitations of one afternoon, we asked the girl at the information desk for directions to the Partick underground station and she sent us out into the now heavy rain confident of soon reaching our destination. Her directions were poor and the signage even more so; we found ourselves wandering along a wide road with only a petrol station to call into for further directions. We were given advice suitable for a car based traveller, but saved from further disaster by a truck driver who knew about the tunnel under the “motorway”. We walked and walked through the puddles and soft verges of the road, finally arriving in Partick but still without clear signage, until we spoke to a school boy who gave us clear directions to the interchange. Here we caught the subway back to St Enochs, then walked through more rain to Glasgow Central, catching a very busy late afternoon train back to Bellshill. 

 

Since arriving home, the heavy rain has been replaced with good old Scots mist but we are still whinging about the poor weather.

Strathclyde Country Park Caravan Club Site, Bothwell, Glasgow

Today was meant to be the best of the week, or at least that is what the weather girl on the tele told us, so was an obvious choice for a tour of the area beyond the city, hence we set off under cloudy skies and a few little streaks of blue, south toward Ayr, confident that we were to see a section of Ayshire without rain, mist and murk. How naive were we!

Our route took us south west across pleasant rural country to match many regions of New Zealand’s North Island, lush with feed although Chris did suggest this might be watercress rather than wholesome grass, this based on our own experiences of picking our way across waterlogged Scottish countryside. We passed through the attractive rural township of Strathhaven, this named for its situation in the valley (strath) of Avon Water, the “e” being interchangeable with the “o”.

We passed the small settlement of Darvel, birthplace of Alexander Fleming, the scientist who fell upon the existence of penicillin, yet another monument to William Wallace, not nearly as grand as that at Stirling, and on to Alloway, birthplace of Scotland’s great poet Robert Burns. A visit to this part of the country without paying homage to the baird would be remiss indeed, even if one is embarrassingly ignorant about his life and output. His reputation is so big, it is easy to put him in the same mental basket of haggis, tartan and bag pipes, and leave him there.

The cottage where Robert Burns was born and spent the first seven or so years of his life was built by his father a couple of years before his birth in 1759 and is still standing in relatively good order, no doubt thanks to the efforts of the National Trust of Scotland who oversee the poet’s legacy. Entry to this is covered by the entry fee to the Museum back up the road, all of which was covered by our membership. 

The museum opened in 2010 after a two year delay and apparently some controversy, however those involved in the establishment of this excellent exhibition can be very proud of it. Later we were gobsmacked to learn that it cost £21 million to build, funded largely by the Scottish government and the Heritage Lottery fund, and could well understand the upset it created. It will take an awful lot of visitors, scones, cups of tea and souvenir sales to recoup the cost.

However sometimes it pays not to know too much, the mystery should remain and here I have spoiled that for more than myself.

We spent more than an hour exploring this wonderful little museum, an array of memorabilia, letters and original manuscripts, audio poetry and songs and stories and facts of his short thirty seven year life, including his rather privileged privately tutored education despite such humble beginnings, his lusty wanderings and fecund lovers, his ever suffering wife and his profuse output of letters, poems and songs. He left thirteen children, nine to his wife, the rest to various love interests.

Needless to say we were delighted to have visited the museum, a bonus to our original plan which had been a drive-only day. We found our way to the beach and parked up to eat our lunch, not willing to venture out beyond fetching the eski from the rear of the vehicle.

Continuing on in a northerly direction through the pleasant residential streets of Ayr, we pulled into the middle of the town centre for a quick wander about. Another blustery shower came over, making our progress up the tired and shabby High Street less pleasant. We were looking for the Auld Kirk, the church built in 1655 on the site of what was a Franciscan or Greyfriars Monastry until the Reformation. There is a welcoming message board but the doors were all locked tight, probably to keep the many shady looking homeless people out; good Christian behaviour. 

Actually we had a bit of trouble finding the kirk tucked away between the High Street and the river, and it was the security man picking up rubbish in the fine new shopping centre at the top of the town who directed us there. And en route we found the Auld Brig, one of the oldest stone bridges in Scotland, a crooked four arched structure built during the reign of James IV (1488 – 1513), this now accessed between rather insalubrious blocks of flats.

Alas our visit to Ayr town centre was not memorable and not helped by the rain, however we can report that the parking meters are fairer than most.

On north we drove, intending to keep to the coastline but not with great success. The roads are set back from the sea for most of the way, until reaching Ardrossan where the ferries for the offshore islands sail. From here, even through the rain mist, we could see the isles of Arran, Little and Great Cumbrae, and as we drove a little further, Hunterston Nuclear Power Station and the massive coal loading structure for the Hunterston Port. The more attractive sight of hundreds of masts at the Fairlie Quay Marina did not distract The Chauffeur’s attention from our itinerary, but we did pull into a picnic area on the Fairlie waterfront, where we enjoyed the sight of the multi-coloured seaside houses. Soon we reached Largs where we turned inland and headed home, reaching the motorway before the worst of the afternoon traffic build up.

Strathclyde Country Park Caravan Club Site, Bothwell, Glasgow

Today we could so easily have decided to stay indoors, reading and looking forward to a pot of hot soup for lunch, but we would have been hugely disappointed later in the day when the rain stopped and the sun appeared albeit for a few hours. Instead we bit the bullet and headed once more to the railway station at Bellshill, today buying “Roundabout Glasgow” tickets which allowed us to travel freely on the rail and underground within certain boundaries for £6.80 each.

Arriving at Glasgow Central, we made our way the short distance along the street to catch the funny little underground circle at St Enoch. The  two opposing routes, the inner and outer, allow access to fifteen points about the city, in a bright noisy little coccoon, or capsule, reminding me of futuristic machines seen in old sci-fi movies. I did say yesterday that Glasgow has one of the oldest underground systems in the world, and while it is certainly using trains updated from its first operations, I suspect there has been little done since it was first opened. But for all that, this strange little caterpillar delivered us safely to the Kelvinhall Station from where we were easily able to access the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

This is yet another of the grand edifices of Glasgow city, brash yet quite wonderful, but all so much in contrast with the sight of so many homeless attempting to claim the streets for themselves.

Back in 1888, the Glasgow International Exhibition, housed in a temporary but ostentatious brick and steel structure in the adjacent park was a chance to show off Victorian Glasgow’s success to the world. Thousands of objects were purchased from the exhibition and the profits were used, together with donations from the city’s wealthy industrialists, to fund the more permanent building of the red sandstone Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Further exhibitions were held in 1901, when the gallery was opened, then again in 1911 and in 1938.

Walking from the subway to the gallery, one has good views of the turreted tower of Glasgow University, and just across the road is the grand Kelvin Hall, recently renovated and now apparently a “cultural and sports venue” athough it does not look at all appropriate for such use.

But aside from comments about these architectural wonders, the art gallery and museum is absolutely wonderful and deserved more than the four and a half hours we gave it. However our time was broken up a little, first by just over an hour with volunteer guide Chris, a retired primary school teacher who had returned to the city of her upbringing after decades of absence, thrilled to be able to offer something back and passionate about this treasure trove. After an excellent overview of the gallery, having trekked from one end of the expanse to the other, we found a little spot under one of the stairways set aside for those with “packed lunches”; they obviously knew we were coming. After a short exploration of one of the art galleries, we sat in one of the massive halls and were treated to an organ recital by Simon Nieminski for half an hour. Cameras were set up so we could watch his hands and feet on the keyboards,  to be amazed at his dexterity and co-ordination, apart from appreciating the lovely strains of sonatas, reveries and hymns.

Kelvingrove has a magnificent organ, built in 1901 by Lewis & Co of London, installed in its position on the second floor high above the Centre Hall in 1902. Recitals are held daily, free to the public as is entry to the galleries.

The art gallery had been our original point of interest and we were duly rewarded. There is a large exhibition of work by the “Glasgow Boys”, a loose-knit group of about twenty British artists at the end of the 19^th century. In the 1890s their work was widely admired in Europe and America, where they were regularly invited to exhibit, putting Glasgow on the cultural map thus encouraging following generations of Scottish artists to have confidence in their own abilities and experimentation. And follow they did, the Scottish Colourists between 1900 and 1930; Ferguson, Peploe, Hunter and Cadell, whose work was also well represented here in the gallery.

Another surprise in the art department was the space reserved for Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, currently out on loan to a gallery in Europe. There was a good supporting exhibition about this work, the artist and how the gallery came to own such a work, and even better still, the copyright, which means that if you have ever bought a print, postcard or teatowel using this painting, you will have been making a small contribution to the upkeep of this gallery in Glasgow, justification for the action of the director who made the purchase in the 1950s to the dismay of the city’s ratepayers.

Of course there was so much to see and take in here, not least further on the growth and development of industrial Glasgow, and a small display attempting to convince the visitor that Glasgow is in the process of re-inventing itself from the decline and decay suffered in the post-war economic downturn in shipbuilding and heavy engineering. In the 1980s a strategy was adopted to re-brand the city and use the arts, culture and sport as the catalysts for investment and urban regeneration; let us say this is a work in progress.

Have I mentioned that last year  Scotland’s economy suffered a deficit of almost £15 million; this for a country who recently held a referendum to free itself from the purse strings of Great Britain? Need I say more?

Not only did we leave the gallery wanting to return for more, always an excellent sentiment, but the sun was shining and further rain was some hours away. It had been an excellent day.

Strathclyde Country Park Caravan Club Site, Bothwell, Glasgow

This morning we paid for two more days here in Bothwell, having decided to do part of our exploration of Ayrshire from here. In fact we have started to consider the weeks ahead, already eyeing up our departure date still just short of two months. However the plans are still in the making and we are, as of tonight, still no further beyond next Monday morning.

This afternoon we learned that Rough Guide readers have just awarded Scotland most the beautiful country award; obviously the voters travelled the country in weather that  enabled clear views. This is a line that my fellow traveller frequently uses when summarising our own travel about Scotland; I am a little more positive. I have loved this country so far, although I would have done so even more without the midges and with a little less rain.

But rain has to be accepted as part of the deal here, and it was in rain we spent yet another day exploring Glasgow. This morning we travelled into the city from Bellshill on the train, a mere twenty minutes of hassle free commute. We arrived in plenty of time to make our way to the City Chambers where we took a free tour about the opulant rooms, up the marble stairway which is reputedly the largest in Western Europe, wandering about rooms beneath ornate vaulted ceilings and domes fashioned with more than 1.5 million tiles laid by hand. Epitomising the aspirations and optimism of the late Victorian city elders, the building was completed in 1888. One of our fellow tourists, a once-upon-a-time Glaswegian now resident in Canada described the interior as “OTT”; despite her maturity, she is more with-it on the lingo than I. It was she too who shared our difficulty in understanding the lovely guide who glowed with pride in her work place but whose regional grammar and poor enunciation coupled with her strong accent left us catching about 80% of the information imparted. I have no idea how the Dutch and German folk got on, however the tour was well taking even for the visuals alone.

Emerging onto George Square, we found our way through the city to Glasgow Green and the People’s Palace. I should mention here that we had found the streets very dirty and uneven yesterday, and this was compounded today by the surface water everywhere. The journey to the city’s own museum was not particularly enjoyable, so we were glad to arrive and settle down in the Winter Garden with our lunch, peeling off the wettest over garments.

The Green is reputedly the oldest park in Britain, although I have a feeling I have written that before. It certainly has been common land since at least 1480, when it was first mentioned in records. There are apparently many sculptures dotted about the park, however we did not see them; we were more intent on tracing our footfall along the wet pavements, dodging the deep puddles and litter, the pockmark of chewing gum impossible to avoid.

The People’s Palace and attached Winter Gardens were opened in 1898 by the Earl of Roseberry, the building a cultural centre for the people of the East End at a time when this was one of the most unhealthy and overcrowded parts of the city. The museum is a squat red-stone Victorian building with a vast semi-circular glasshouse tacked on the back, today leaking like a sieve. Originally the building was divided into reading and recreation rooms on the ground floor, a museum on the first floor and an art gallery on the top. Concerts were held in the Winter Gardens, however since 1940, this has been Glasgow’s local history museum, and is an excellent one at that.

By the 1800s Glasgow had become the Second City of the British Empire, with a burgeoning population, increasing at such an alarming rate that housing became a desperate problem. Despite the tenement housing that was constructed in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, some of which were demolished in the middle of last century and replaced with multi-story residential complexes, not too different from those that have been failing their fire safety checks over the past few months throughout England, housing is still an on-going problem. But then that problem seems to be echoed right through the western world these days, including in our own paradise DownUnder. 

In the 1990s over 30% of Glaswegians lived below the official poverty line. In 1965 38% of houses in Glasgow had no fixed toilet or shower, and even by 1985 5% of households still didn’t have a bath or shower. These random facts gleaned in the museum from the excellent exhibition all about Glasgow Housing serve to demonstrate the backward nature of this city, which in so many other ways has been at the forefront of modern civiliation. For example Glasgow opened its subway in 1896, making it the world’s third oldest.

After a couple of hours in the museum, we set off back up into the city, along Trongate Street which was apparently once a fine part of the city, but the more south eastern parts today were anything but. Examining a map in the middle of the pavement, I found myself ankle deep in floodwater. We retreated into St Enoch’s Shopping Centre and walked up and down admiring the fine merchandise and fashion in the shop windows, before deciding to make our way to the Central Station and head for home even though the hour was not yet late.

Back at camp we found the replacement television remote had arrived and we marvelled at on-line purchases, a practice we have yet to generally adopt. Perhaps if we were not so transient, we might be tempted to join the rest of the world and their on-line consumption.