Saturday 21 June - Exploring Glasgow

Colin had roughly planned out a full day exploring Glasgow city for us and after a delicious breakfast of porridge with fruit (made by Katie) the five of us set off to catch the train to Queen Street.

We admired the City Chambers and could only see the tall statue in George Square in front of the Chambers, as it was all boarded over for renovation. We continued along George Street, walking past Strathclyde University pausing to admire several of the massive murals that make up the Glasgow Mural Trail. Some of the murals cover the entire end wall of the buildings and were beautiful. One of the murals had a door at ground level, which Megan went and knocked on.

Walking up High Street we went past the Provand's Lordship - the oldest house in Glasgow, and across to Glasgow Cathedral (St Mungo's Cathedral). Inside it was nice and cool (it was starting to warm up outside) and the stained-glass windows of the Cathedral were intricately detailed. One area of the Cathedral was used in the filming of the tv series Outlander.

Next to the cathedral was the Necropolis located on a small but prominent hill, filled with huge gravestones dating back to 1832. From the top we took in the view across parts of Glasgow, before heading down past the Drygate and Tennent's Breweries. Continuing along the road we arrived at the Barrowlands Ballroom and Barras Market. Katie and the girls ordered some burger rolls from a small takeaway shop and Colin and I ate lunch from Ho Lee Fook. Elsie bought an apple and cinnamon crumble from her favourite dessert shop at the market then we got some donuts from Danny's Donuts. We took our time exploring the market, coming across plenty of strange items for sale, as well as some genuinely nice things mixed in too.

At little down the road, we stopped at Glickman's on London Road, a tiny shop selling a huge array of sweets. We each chose our own small packet of sweeties and enjoyed a few as we cut through Barrowland Park, walking along the path that listed each of the artists who had performed at the ballroom. Both Elsie and I didn't appreciate the random listing and would have much preferred if they had them ordered chronologically.

We swung by St Andrews in the Square where Colin and Katie had their wedding, then walked down to King Street to the Bare Bones chocolate store located next to the famous Shawarma King. Bare Bones was filled with the sweet aroma of chocolate and we enjoyed tasting small pieces of their different chocolates before buying some bars as well as drinks. The girls chose cold drinks and Colin and I had hot chocolates, despite the increasing temperature.

Walking passed a few more murals, including one of the hilarious Billy Connolly (neither of the girls knew who he was, and I joked with Colin that as a Glaswegian he failing in his duties), and up to Argyle Street. This lead us to the pedestrian zone of Buchanan Street and into Princes Square - one of very few enclosed shopping centres. The shops are centred around the atrium decorated with timber and metalwork staircases and balustrades. Whilst inside Colin tasted some whisky and Elsie explored SpaceNK, and outside the clouds released a bit of rain. However, the rain was very short lived as it stopped by the time we left the shopping centre.

Onto the famous Duke of Wellington with the cones on his head, we stopped briefly for some touristy photos in front of the statue. Then we caught the Subway to Hillhead on Byres Road. The Glasgow subway is a simple loop with trains that go in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. And the actual trains have the lowest ceiling, so much so that it was highly beneficial to be short!

Along the cobbled stone laneways, we turned down Ashton Lane and stopped at the Brel for a drink on the hill. The sun was shining and there was live music - a lovely vibe for a Saturday afternoon. After a refreshing and some screen time for the girls we followed Megan to the Glasgow University, wandering past the main old buildings including the Hunterian Museum, the cloisters and of course the lion and unicorn stairs. Megan had chewed our ears with imaginative 'facts' about unicorns throughout Glasgow all morning.

Kelvingrove Park was our next stop taking the path past the bandstand and down to the playground where both Megan and Elsie had a brief play on the playground. The park was being prepared for the Mela Festival, to be held on Sunday for Scotland's largest multi-cultural festival of music, dance and arts. We continued along a few more of the pathways through to Kelvington Art Gallery and admired the stunning building from the outside only, as it was close to 5pm and no longer open.

Walking through Finnieston the girls got drinks from Tantrum Donuts (only a few fancy flavoured donuts left), and we (adults) failed to get a drink at the Corner Shop Wine Bar because we only wanted drinks and we had children with us. Oh well, onto the next place.

Colin showed me the whisky wall in the Ben Nevis bar (a place he enjoyed going to whilst at Uni here), then we found the Hidden Lane - a sweet cobble-stone lane with arty type stores, and browsed the few shops that were still open. Along the main road we went into Gallus Alice and discovered some quirky and funny items amongst jewellery, clothing and an assortment of other lovely things.

We got a table at 'Strip Joint' a bar come pizza place with 90's memorabilia handing on the walls and from the exposed metal beams. The girls enjoyed the pause, while Colin, Katie and I enjoyed a drink (beer / wine), before we strolled back down the road to Sano pizza for dinner. The pizza's were delicious and Elsie inhaled her pizza before even Colin has eaten half of his. The conversation over dinner became quite hilarious and was a fabulous end to our truly amazing day.

Megan continued the hilarity on the train home from Exhibition Centre to Hillfoot station and during the walk (Megan bounced and danced) back home.