Glasgow Part 3

Sadly we didn't have enough time to explore all the street art in Glasgow of which there is an enormous number of exhibits on the side of buildings, but one I saw really impressed me. I had mentioned in my previous post about St Mungo being the patron saint of Glasgow and his connection to the robin. This mural was not far from the cathedral and Necropolis.  If you zoom in, you can see the amazing detail of his beard, skin and the robin's feathers.

On our third day, we visited the Botanic gardens across the road from our hotel. It was arguably every bit as good as London's Kew Gardens and had an amazing variety of plants in the glass houses. We went a bit crazy taking lots of photos!! These are just a few!!

After lunch, we went on to visit the university or I should say universities, as there are three. The University of Glasgow belongs to the Russell group and is the more traditional university founded in 1451. Then there is the University of Strathclyde which is more like the old polytechnics used to be with a technological, business and industrial slant and then the Glasgow Caledonian University which focuses on career-oriented study. It explains why the streets are teeming with students and the town has a lively feel, bustling with many cafes and restaurants.

The University of Glasgow is a mixture of old and modern buildings, as you might expect, the oldest being Victorian circa 1870 which is quite impressive.

Kay said with a sigh, she wished she'd have studied medicine here, as she did not have too good a time at the Yorkshire uni she went to. I know that period of time was quite painful for her, as she was heavily bullied for being a southerner by a Liverpool girl sharing her first year flat - a psychology student at that, who probably knew very well what mental harm she was inflicting.  I too wished Kay had gone to Glasgow. Water under the bridge now, but it did make her uni years very unhappy at the time.

Part of the Glasgow university housed the Hunterian Museum - affiliated to the one in London in that the Glasgow one was named after William Hunter a royal physician in the 1700s and  the London one after his younger brother John Hunter a pioneering surgeon. It houses many medical anatomical specimens as well as protypes of medical equipment, such as the first X-ray and ultrasound machines, which of course was of extreme interest to Kay.

Our final day, after checking out of the hotel was spent walking to Sauchiehall Street - a famous street name imprinted in my brain as being associated with Glasgow. It turned out to be less of interest than my brain had told me, but nevertheless worth eliminating.  We ended up seeing the Charles Rennie Mackintosh tearooms, before returning to collect our suitcases from the hotel and catching the 15:38 train back to London.

Charles Rennie MacKintosh tearoom

The five hour journey back seemed daunting, but the time went very quickly as we passed mountains and hills through the lake District and snatched some sleep too. Arriving back at Euston at 20:14, we quickly made our way through the London Underground and homewards, where Kay's husband was waiting in his car at the station to drop me off at home.