A day exploring the wonderful galleries, museums and architecture of Glasgow
Finding ourselves in Glasgow for the very first time, my daughter and I determined to explore the city and had just one day. Luckily, we happened upon a sunny day, but the itinerary had plenty of indoor stops, should the city’s reputation as the wettest in the UK manifest.
First we headed to the Tenement House, a fascinating time-capsule of life in the early 20th-century. Miss Toward came to live in this four-room apartment in 1911 and changed little before her death in 1975. My daughter completed the check-list of to-her-unfamiliar items in record time, and we marvelled at the hole-in-the-wall bed in the kitchen, the over-sink mangle and the 100-year-old soap beside the foot-cranked sewing machine.
Fuelled by fudge, we walked through large leafy Kelvingrove Park to its Art Gallery and Museum. Our lunch was beautifully accompanied by an organ recital in the main hall. Then we galloped through the Glasgow Boys and Charles Rennie Mackintosh galleries, before focusing on Scottish wildlife and prehistoric fossils. And also took in Salvador Dali’s tremendous Christ on the Cross.
Next, Zaha Hadid’s soaringly angular Riverside Museum, an emporium for all things transportation, set on the Clyde. There were huge steam trains, a tall ship, a wall of cars, two underground train systems, a psychedelic campervan, trams, carriages, streets of shops illuminating bygone days such as a pawnbroker and saddlers, and a witty wheel of bicycles hanging from the ceiling. Outside, my daughter loved her first go at mountaineering around an obstacle course, and sitting on an oversize faux-grass-covered sofa.
Finally, we strolled through the City Centre: through George Square, along Buchanan Street complete with shoppers and buskers, making sure to catch the iconic Wellington Statue, never without a traffic cone!
Everywhere we saw pianos parked with “Play Me, I’m Yours”. We wholeheartedly recommend Glasgow!
Images by Nadine Mellor