Our first stop in Scotland, was Glasgow. It was of my favorite places in Scotland. Our hotel was Rab Ha’s. It was an old inn/pub/restaurant since the 1700’s and named after the original owner who was famously fat and loved to eat. Our first room was a little cramped but when we came back from the Isle of Skye, we were moved to a larger nicer room. The inn was situated in the middle of the shopping district and there were many pubs and clubs in the area. We were usually kept awake during the night by revelers walking home after the clubs closed. We at many of our meals at the pub. Dinner was pretty good! I tried their black pudding and the haggis there, both good. Chris was introduced to his favorite beer of all time at this point, St. Mungo’s. It’s a locally brewed Austrian-style pilsner. I fell in love with Thistly Cross a Scottish brand cider.
We used our hotel as a base to explore the rest of the city over the course of three days. One of the first places we visited was the Glasgow School of Art. The building was designed by Charles Rennie MacKintosh. This guy did it all. He was an architect, interior designer, painter, textile designer, and sculptor. He just about made everything in the museum we visited. He was a major influence in the arts and crafts movement and is famous for his chair designs. His buildings can be seen all over the city. This is Chris’ favorite chair design which he hopes to build in the future.
Another day we took a tour bus ride and saw the Royal Botanic Gardens, the People’s Museum ( a museum of recent history in Glasgow) and we also spent time in the Glasgow Science Museum.
One day we did a full-day tour of the Wallace Monument, Loch Lomand and a Whisky tour. Our coach broke down a couple of hours into the tour so our driver had to improvise on where we went for the whisky portion of the tour. We ended up at Famous Grouse Distillery instead of DeWar’s. At Wallace Monument, what a hike to the top of the hill! There were 246 steps to the top of monument. I never want to walk down another winding staircase again! View from the top was excellent though.
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