Before I start, I have to tell you about the photo above. This is the view out our hotel room window here at Grasshoppers in Glasgow. The hotel sits on the sixth floor above the Glasgow Central Rain Station. Those panels in the foreground that look like solar panels are actually skylights in the station below. Across from our room, we think those are apartments, but we aren’t sure anyone lives there as we have never seen any movement and only one light, and that’s a work light. But no matter what they are, we found the whole thing very interesting, and I had to include a shot of the view, now on with the actual post.

When doing our planning almost a year ago, Kathleen and I had discussed how much time we wanted to spend in Glasgow. We have been to Edinburgh three times in the past and have spent about seven days total there. We could easily spend three or four more and still not have seen or done everything we would like to. It is one of my favorite cities in the world.

So when discussing Glasgow, we decided we wanted at least two full days here along with the transition days when we came up from England, before we drove north, when we got back from up north, and today…when we take the train to London. We thought that two full days would make us want to come back again. In retrospect, one day would have been enough. We found Glasgow kind of boring. Yes, it has a very nice hotel, some great restaurants and beautiful murals, but to be honest, that’s about it.

I mentioned on our first full day that we had taken the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour. Usually, when we do that, we take the entire tour and then return to the places we want to see again. We didn’t go back to anyplace. Just nothing intrigued us enough. There were a few things I wanted to walk to and take photos of, but I got those (show them to you in a minute) but; looking back on it, if I were planning this trip again, we would have stayed an extra day in Portree or gone up to Inverness (even though we have been there before) and then driven back, dropped the car and taken the train to London the next morning.

I am not dissing Glasgow—it’s just not our cup of tea. It is a grimier, more industrial city than Edinburgh and seems to be centered on shopping and museums. Edinburgh is a museum. I could walk the Royal Mile for hours. I am looking forward to stopping there next Monday during the cruise.

Now, on to the walk I took with my camera and the photos. After breakfast at the hotel, we went out to do a bit of shopping. Kathleen had forgotten to bring a hat, and since we are headed to the part of Norway that is beyond the Arctic Circle by the end of next week, she thought she might need one. So we were off to find her a nice, warm knit hat. Found it. Back at the hotel, I dropped Kathleen off, and I was out for a five-mile walk. Have camera, will travel. But first, here are a few pics while she and I were out walking that I liked.

The one place I had seen on our bus tour I wanted to explore more of was the Cathedral and the Necropolis. In case you don’t know exactly what a necropolis is, the dictionary that’s built into my Mac says that it’s “a cemetery, especially a large one, belonging to an ancient city.” Why did I want to see this necropolis, you ask? Well, a few years ago (quite a few years), we were huge fans of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a native Glaswegian. As a special program, Craig brought a few guests (Kristen Bell, Michael Clark Duncan) to his hometown and filmed a great deal of the special in the necropolis. I don’t know why I recalled that, but I do remember that it looked quite interesting, so I decided I had to see it, and since it was right behind the cathedral, I figured I might as well see that too.

Along the way to and from, I saw more of the incredible murals that Glasgow is famous for, and I wanted better shots of them than I had been able to get off the top of the bus. So here are the pics with captions. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That’s about it for our last day here in Glasgow. As I write this, I am sitting in the “sitting room” at Grasshoppers Hotel, looking out the windows at the view I started this post with. It’s 5:45 a.m., and Kathleen (like most normal humans) is asleep. We have tickets on the 10:18 a.m. train to London right downstairs. In fact, if I listen very carefully, I can hear them announcing the next train. It’s really kind of cool. I think I will leave you with one final photo. This is a panoramic shot from inside the station itself. Our room is above those windows on the left. I LOVE European train stations. For some reason, they just do it for me.  And since we will have more than four hours on a train from that station, watch later today for a summary of our time in England and Scotland.

The great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.  —Billy Connolly