Month: March 2024

Saturday 20 January 2024 – Glasgow, Scotland.

‘We’re Mogwai, from Glasgow, Scotland’ is the first thing that pops into my head whenever I think about Scotland’s second city. Mogwai have been a favourite band for many years and I’m fairly certain that Stuart Braithwaite, the band ‘leader’, says this at every gig. I’ve not visited Glasgow before and I’ve not been on the Caledonian Sleeper train either, so when it was announced there would be a heavy January discount on London Euston to Scotland journeys I booked us a cabin.

With so much disruption with Sunday trains and with Eleanor not working on a Friday we’ve mostly taken to moving our weekend forward a day and travelling out after work on a Thursday and back on Saturday. Not having to contemplate Sunday trains is relieves a little bit of stress.

The sleeper train leaves Euston at 23:45 though you can access your cabin from 22:30, so we boarded soon after arriving at the station, had a quick nosey around our tiny cabin then popped out for a glass of wine in one of the lounge carriages until we were well under way. It’s a most civilised way to travel.

We sat in the lounge for an hour or so as we slowly moved through north London, before speeding up as we left the capital. We headed to bed soon after, not expecting much sleep; and little sleep is what we had. I had forgotten the noise and motion on a sleeper train. The bed was small, but not uncomfortable and my night, while largely sleepless wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the experience of journeying as I ‘slept’ and arriving in a new city is always exciting.

We had an alarm set for 6:45 but it wasn’t needed, and though we had a shower in our cabin we chose to not chance get everything wet and went and had breakfast and coffee in the lounge instead; it was included in the price and it was better than OK; this was a train after all and were not travelling first class.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Glasgow. The view from the outside, especially from as far as New Zealand was never rosy; grime, crime, the collapse of industry, the Gorballs; and other housing estates, heroin, poverty, alcoholism, domestic and gang violence. You get the picture, and it wasn’t a pretty one. Things changed significantly over the last few years after massive investment in the city and improvement to housing, job opportunities and the types of jobs on offer. However, we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis and fringe cities that are recovering often see the first stages of decline. I hadn’t fully formed expectations when we arrived.

It was raining when we stepped out of the station into the dark of 7:20 am winter Scotland. I wasn’t surprised, and almost welcomed the gloom, though the rain was heavier than expected or I wanted. We stopped for coffee in a Café Nero directly opposite the station exit and waited until the worst of the rain had passed before walking the 20 minutes to our hotel. here was an unexpected hill. I don’t know why, but I had I thought Glasgow was flat. There was a light covering of ice covered snow on the ground in some places which made walking up the short but steep hill a bit tentative.

I don’t often shout out to businesses, that isn’t the purpose of this blog, but there are always exceptions and it’s my blog so I can do what I want. We arrived at Hotel Dakota about 8am, seven hours before check in, but our room was ready and available so they invited us to check in and make use of the room, which we very gratefully accepted. In my experience this is rare, usually you can dump a bag in a storage room and be sent off until check-in time.  We got to have a wee nap and a very hot shower in before heading out later in the morning; when things were actually open.

We walked about 17 kilometres today, from one side of the city centre to the other starting with a walk down a fairly non-descript main road in, at times. quite heavy windblown rain to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, fortunately the rain didn’t last long and the rest of the day was reasonably dry.

Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum

The gallery and museum were OK, I don’t think we were really in the mood for a lot of history, though we did read a little about the architectural and design history of the city and were inspired to go to the Willow Tea Room later in the day. The park was really nice, especially with the pre-grey slush remains of a light dusting of snow.

The tea room was designed by renown Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and is his last surviving tea room. It originally opened in 1903 and has recently been returned to its former glory. It’s lovely inside, though sadly, none of my photos worked. We stopped in for a glass of wine and the largest of scones and just enjoyed being somewhere so nice. The section of Sauchiehall Street where the tea room resides is pretty grim mind.

Sauchiehall Street stretches from the large and tidy houses of Kelvingrove; a lot were funded by those involved in the slave trade, through to the centre of the city and a newish John Lewis dominated shopping mall. Both ends of the street are quite nice, but the middle is a bit faded and jaded if you know what I mean. The Sauchiehall Street highlight for me was the beautiful Beresford Tower, absolutely gorgeous.

I had to pass through George Square because Mogwai have a track called ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’ named after hundreds of Glaswegians partied in the square on the news of the death of UK ex prime minister Margaret Thatcher. I can’t possibly comment on the appropriateness of celebrating Thatcher’s death in such an exuberant way, and then writing a song to celebrate the celebration.

In front of the museum of modern art is a statue of the Duke of Wellington that is internationally known for pretty much always having a traffic cone, or two or three, on his head, this has been the case since the 1980s and apparently it inspired Banksy. It’s a work of modern art.

We were flagging by the time we got into the gallery, so had a quick meander round a couple of floors before deciding we’d had enough and took a slow walk back to the hotel. We particularly liked that the museum had the same Ikea chairs that I have in my flat.

We had dinner at a really nice vegetarian restaurant back in Kelvingrove and after a wee dram in the hotel bar collapsed into bed for a well deserved sleep, as I said earlier we’d walked 17kms today.

Saturday morning was wet and cold and we had a lunch time train back to London. We took a late, leisurely and ludicrously expensive breakfast in the hotel before leaving. Thankfully it was nice. We walked back to the station via the River Clyde, something we failed to do yesterday, given how massively important the river is to Glasgow’s history. We also passed the only brutalist building I’ve seen in Glasgow, and it was surrounded by fences so this was a close I got.

The train journey back to London was OK, it’s five hours and it wasn’t the sleeper so it wasn’t as ‘luxurious’ as the journey north. I enjoyed the trip, the sleeper was something I’ve wanted to do for a while and I’m glad I’ve knocked it off the list, and it was a good experience too.