Glasgow

 Arriving in Glasgow we found our hotel (ApartHotel Adagio) to be a very fine apartment hotel. Compact but unimaginably efficient. Nice breakfasts. Very friendly and accommodating staff. Perfect for remote work. That's what we do, right?

Side note: On day 3 we took a breakfast table at the window (the only day we sat there.) At one point I saw someone seemingly wave at us. Who would know us? Well. it was the driver, James, who toured us (in a Tesla) around in Edinburg and to Inverness. What? Yep, he was there for the first time and was picking up new clients.

Upon arrival, we wandered the neighborhood looking for food supplies. There were at least 4 possible grocery stores in the vicinity, But Tesco, probably the smallest and definitely the most convenient also turned out to have the best products for our needs. 

We had a morning walking tour for an Overview of Glasgow. We started with a visit to the The Willow Tea Rooms Building. Why visit a tea room if you are not a tea drinker? To experience Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work. Macintosh is an architect and artist of the late 19C/early 20C. He is noted for the stark simplicity of his designs which contrast starkly with the flamboyance and elaborate designs of the Victorian era. His contemporary designs really caught on in the late 20C. His work can be enjoyed at The Willow Tea Room and at the Hunterian Museum where his home was reconstructed with many of the materials from the original. 

The tearoom is also significant as pioneering effort of Catherine Cranston and her brother to provide a alternative to pubs for women to socialize. In 1903 she hired Charles Rennie Mackintosh to design The Willow Tea Rooms Building which became Miss Cranston's fourth and finest tea room. Catherine has an interesting personal history aside from her support of Mackintosh. She married for love in her mid-forties, kept her maiden name, built a highly successful business with her husband's moral (but not financial) support. 

From there we moved on for a brief stop at the National Botanic Gardens with its two impressive glass houses, including the Kibble Palace, named after the Victorian John Kibble who brought the glasshouse from his home at Coulport (50 miles from Glasgow) and reassembled it in 1873. Quite the jigsaw puzzle. This is now where temperate plants from various areas of the World are displayed. The second green house is for tropical plants.

We continued on through the University of Glasgow appreciating some fine architecture, passing the Hunterian Museum, skirting a promising shopping district and on to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Luckily as entered the massive lobby in time to take in a portion of the performance on the huge pipe organ,

After a Pub lunch at the cafe we did a highlights tour of the museum. Pat, of course had to see the Impressionism collection with works by Monet, Gauguin and Renoir. Some other works we enjoyed were

• Among the Impression exhibit, = a Sunset by Paul Signac. With its reflections it looks a pretty Rorschach test. 

• The detailed carving on an elephant's tusk (I know it is a terrible thing to take these tusks but I feel it is better to honor the beauty it still retains then to simply scorn the practice.)
• An unusual but very interesting collection of women's clothes from the 1800's called "robes á la transformation". These dresses were designed to evolve with time/fashion styles or with the nature of an event. Co-ordinating bodices and  detachable parts enabled the wearer to easily adapt these dresses as needed. 
• The uniform of a Scottish Groom: Rather than a suit, many grooms in Glasgow today choose formal Highland dress. This modern version  has evolved over the last 300 years.
• An orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. It shows the positions and movements of the Sun, planets and moons, as they were understood 180 years ago.

The next day we retraced some of the overview tour. We were particularly impressed with the extensive collection of "Killer Plants" at the National Botanic Garden. A wide variety of types and sizes. All very healthy!

We spotted a Cafe Andaluz nearby and stopped there for lunch. It is a Spanish tapas place. We ate at a sister restaurant in Edinburg.

Then we went to the Hunterian Museum to visit the Mackintosh house. The odd thing about his work is that on their own, some pieces do not look at all comfortable. Yet combined they provide a soothing feel that is at least comforting.

One day we drove south to visit the birthplace of Rabbie (Robert) Burns who is known as the National Poet of Scotland. We had heard of Brig O'Doon but it had little meaning to us. Here we learned the story of Tam o' Shanter and crossed the Brig O'Doon, a 15C cobblestone bridge featured in its final verse. In the poem, Tam o' Shanter races across the bridge on horseback to escape witches and warlocks who are chasing him. The bridge's cobblestones are deliberately crooked, based on the belief that this would prevent witches from crossing. 

We followed the Poet's Path (complete with ironwork characters celebrating scenes from Tam O’Shanter and visit the museum where we had fun identifying who's who in a mural of Rabbie with 12 famous "friends" and take in the open seascapes across the Firth of Clyde to Ailsa Craig.

Visit Culzean Castle estate, with its grand clifftop castle rising above the woods, beaches, secret follies and parks before enjoying the coastal route back to Glasgow with great views of the Clyde coast.

We stopped in Dunure and had lunch at the Anchorage.

On our way home we stopped at clifftop Culzean Castle.

On our last day in Glasgow we visited a nearby arcade/mall with some interesting restaurants but noting really for shops, Mall, went to the Necropolis and nearby Cathedral, had lunch at Zizzi in the mall we visited earlier and had dinner at Champagne Station. Along the way we checked out the display at a kilt shop. At Zizzi we had some interesting snacks, fusilli noodles that had been deep fried (we think) and sprinkled with cayenne pepper.