Travel Blog – Day 3

I made myself a long list of potential stops for my third day in Glasgow but I had no real idea how many I could get to. Turns out, almost all of them.

First I wanted to check out St. Mungo’s Cathedral, which is the oldest area of Glasgow. The stained glass windows of St. Mungo’s are gorgeous and there is so much detail! Photographing inside a dark cathedral proved to be quite challenging and the photos couldn’t really capture the beauty of the dark stone offset by the flood of colorful light. But the one thing I thought was very cool is that each of the windows that had been restored incorporated a description, artist name and date in the glass at the bottom of each panel, giving visitors more information about the timeline of the building.

I walked across to the Necropolis, the cemetery connected to St. Mungo’s by a stone bridge. From the top, you can get some wonderful views of the City.

One of the intricate mausoleum’s.

Just next door to the Necropolis is Tennent’s Brewing. Although they offer free tours, it was still considered breakfast-time, so I thought better of it.

I made my way back to the People’s Palace and Winter Garden, which the bus passed by on their route. On the way there I found a few buildings that would be really cool to buy and restore. This one is an old school.

The People’s Palace and Winter Gardens holds a history museum in the stone building and the glass greenhouse is of course, the Winter Garden portion.

As grey as it has been the last few days, I have to say the glass roofs around Glasgow make for really beautiful spaces to be inside.

Walking back to City Center I checked out the “Homes for the Future” buildings that were designed for Glasgow’s 1999 “UK City of Architecture and Design” festival.

Next up the top of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Lighthouse. The building was originally built for the Glasgow Herald and is now Scotland’s Center for Design and Architecture.

The hike up the spiral stair is rewarded with some great views around the City.

Then I hussled over to the City Chambers Building for their afternoon free tour. The architect, William Young, had spent a great deal of time in the Mediterranean, which was illustrated in the mosaic tile floors.

There were several species of wood throughout the rooms we toured, with connections to the countries of the British Empire. This one is of course mahogany coming from Africa.

So many beautiful skylights throughout the building.

This is the largest Carrera marble staircase in Europe (extending one story higher than that of the Vatican).

My last stop of the day was the Willow Tea Room on Buchanan Street, with recreated portions of details from Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Tea Rooms that he originally designed for Catherine Cranston. The original tea rooms were updated over the years and then later were closed. It was bustling, so I decided not to stay for tea, but I was able to take a look.

After about 8 miles of walking I was quite knackered, as they say here. So I made my to the tallest movie theater in the world, Cineworld, to catch a movie. It was a nice way to end the day. FYI nachos at the movie theater are quite different in the UK and I found myself wishing I had just stuck with traditional popcorn. Live and learn!