Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, is home to the GoMA, People’s Palace, Glasgow Cathedral and evidently a few sketchy people. In our short 3 days in the city my friend, Diana, and I were able to see breathtaking sights, experience amazing cuisine and even went clubbing in the basement of a church. And although there were a few interesting incidents that left me a little baffled, Glasgow moved to the top of my list for ‘favorite city in the UK’, so far…
We arrived in the city early Friday morning and immediately caught the express bus going into city centre. As I was taking in the beautiful scenery passing by, Diana was watching the GPS on her phone as we got further and further away from our hotel… turns out our hotel was the opposite direction about half an hour outside the city. We got off the bus at the first stop and found a café to sit in while we figured out our lives. Luckily, Diana pulled off some impressive acting to our original hotel and we were able to cancel and rebook one closer to the fun. Thank you, Diana!
After dropping our bags off at the adorable Merchant City Inn we went out and wandered around the city. Checking out the GoMA before making our way to the Willow Tea Rooms. This famous tearoom was unreal. From the décor, to the scones to the plethora of tea options, I was in tea-heaven.
With no plans that night we wandered around Merchant City and found a cute Spanish restaurant called Pancho Villas to eat dinner at. We then proceeded to Bar 91 for some drinks where we met a lovely middle-aged couple from the city. They were telling us of their experiences in Cancun that past spring when they declared: “you Canadians sure can drink!” Sadly, this isn’t the first time we had heard a statement like this…
The next day we were up bright and early to get some more sightseeing in. We walked over to the Barras Market, which is supposed to be famous. Now, I’m not sure if someone was joking when they said this or if we just missed the good stuff but it was more like a garage sale than a vintage market…we gave it all of 5 minutes and then headed off to see People’s Palace.
Lord Rosebery opened people’s Palace in 1898 for the people of Glasgow, specifically those who were living in poverty in the East End. Today it is a museum about the city but definitely designed more for the kids…so naturally I had a great time there.
After having our fun in the palace it was time for a much-needed pint of beer so we crossed the park to WEST Brewery. Shortly after sitting down and ordering a drink we started chatting with a presumably friendly man at the bar. He bought us another beer and a glass of whiskey (not my favorite combination) and started telling us about himself and the city. We told him we had reservations at this famous restaurant that night and he proceeded to recommend to us different dishes that he had tried there the night before. Prior to leaving we agreed to meet up with him for a drink after dinner so he could show us around Byres Road and Ashton Lane (the trendy area of the city).
Before heading back to the hotel for dinner we stopped by Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis Cemetery. The Cathedral is stunning. It’s not overly glamorous like some churches in Europe but its gothic architecture is super neat and definitely worth seeing. As well as the Victorian built cemetery, Necropolis, which has some of the most incredible tombs and statues built within its walls.
Next up was dinner at the famous Ubiquitous Chip restaurant on Ashton Lane. And it’s no wonder it’s famous. The ambience is breathtaking; with brick walls, cherry blossom trees and twinkling lights, it feels as though you’ve stepped into magical woods. The service was incredible, the food was to die for and wine was superb. And fun fact: we ended up getting our entire £200 meal for free, yes you heard me right – free! But this was when things started to get a little weird…
First: Nothing that the guy had suggested to us was actually on the menu, and seeing as how he had been there the night before it seemed highly unlikely that the menu had just changed
Second: Diana gets a Facebook friend notification from him with a message saying that we must have gotten our phone numbers mixed up but he was looking forward to seeing us…We had never given him our last names… (Facebook creeping at it’s finest?)
Third: We go to leave the restaurant and he comes running out of the pub next-door yelling “ladieeeeees”, we proceed inside with him and see that he’s being hanging out there alone waiting for us
Forth: We’re inside and talking to him with another lady and he keeps going on and on about his life when the lady turns to Diana and says “he’s full of [insert inappropriate ‘s’ word here]
Diana then proceeds to put on some more impressive acting and gets us the heck out of there. As we are leaving the bartender follows us out to see if we are okay and tells us that the guy seems off. The bouncer offers to kick him out but we decided to just go into the crowded bar across the street. Sadly, not quite the end…
The bar ended up being too crowded so we chose the one next to it and went in. We had barely stepped inside when we hear again “ladieeeeeees” … our ‘pal’ comes over and tells us he’s going to get us drinks. That’s when Diana looks at me and in a no-nonsense voice says, “run!”
We booked it out of the bar and across the street into another bar and hid behind a corner. Of course, two minutes later he finds us and proceeds to spend the next five minutes yelling at us and shouting, “you act like children” whilst making wide sweeping motions with his arms and practically spitting on us. Not wanting to set him off like a lion on its prey we avoided eye contact and just kept nodding our heads. Finally we said “sorry, we just want some time alone” and with another “you act like children” he stormed off.
I’m happy to say that our night got exponentially better from there! We made friends with a group of normal guys from the city and they brought us to a sweet club in the basement of a church. We danced until the wee hours of the night like we had all been friends for years before dragging our tired butts to bed at 5am.
It’s easy to say that Glasgow was quite the experience: breathtaking sights, amazing cuisine and like I said, evidently some sketchy people. But for the one sketchy guy, we met at least 8 really lovely people and I think it’s safe to say our overall experience was pretty amazing.
Now I need to take my “child” self to get some homework done.
With Love,
CW
With Love, CW 