We made the 233 mile journey from Brussels, Belgium to the St. Pancras train station in London in approximately two and a half hours on the Eurostar. You really don’t realize that for 30 of those miles you were traveling under the English Channel. It was a relaxing trip and we were deposited at London’s busiest train station.
It was just an overnight stop for us though. We’d already been to London in previous years, so the next morning we boarded a regional train for Glasgow, Scotland. Even though apps like Rome2Rio tell you that reservations are not needed, I strongly recommend that you make them ( they’re free anyway) because you’d hate to get onboard the train without a seat. It’s a five-hour journey from London to Glasgow and you don’t want to stand or have to sit in front of the loo for the entire trip! Trust me… it happens!
We arrived in Glasgow mid-afternoon on Saturday, with plenty of time and daylight to find our hotel and walk around a bit. We stayed at the Abode Hotel Glasgow, built in 1825, it was the former residence of the Campbell family. One of the family’s descendants was the first Scottish Prime Minister for the United Kingdom and served from 1905 to 1908. His term was cut short when he died in office at No. 10 Downing Street. He is the only prime minister of England to have died in office.
I asked the front desk about its elevator history, as it appeared to be from the turn of the century. The clerk handed me a one-page history of the hotel and said that they believed the elevator was from the 1930s.
The info sheet on the hotel’s history was poorly composed and had a few grammar mistakes, making the flow of the document choppy. So being me, helpful but cheeky, I edited it and gave it back to them. I apologized for my presumption, but the clerk actually said she had been meaning to do it herself and would make my suggested changes.
Dinner was at the Drum & Monkey, an amazing pub housed in a former bank. The food was wonderful and the local craft ales and ciders were delicious.
We spent the first full day on a nine-hour tour of the highlands, castles and lochs, including Loch Lomond. It was a great day, with lots of rain in the beginning, and with only 14 people. The guide, Jerry with a J, was funny and extremely knowledgeable about Scottish history, or rather we all believed he was since we didn’t know it ourselves and he shared stories about he and his Japanese wife and how they met when she explained that the reason the other Japanes girls were laughing at him was because geri meant diarrhea in Japanese. So now he says he likes to say Jerry with a J and not a G!
We had a wonderful visit to Castle Doune in Stirling, the castle used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. For the younger generation, it also served as Castle Winterfell from Game of Thrones and Castle Leoch from Highlander. The small towns we visited and had lunch at, were quaint and one even had a Christmas store, which Steven refused to go inside. I did, of course, finding me an awesome Highlander Santa wearing a kilt and playing bagpipes for my tree this year.
After we were dropped off at George Square, we found a small Italian restaurant and ordered a couple of pizzas for dinner. It was delicious, but we ordered too much and had an entire pie left over, so we had the waiter box it up. Because it was a beautiful evening, we were sitting outside the restaurant and a young man came by and asked us if we had anything to eat. We instinctively said no, but as he walked away, I told Steven we would not be eating the leftovers and I called the boy back and gave him the box. As he walked away, he immediately started stuffing the pizza in his mouth. Steven said I got played but I said most people ask for money. I’ve never had anyone to actually ask for food, so he must have been hungry. My beloved cynic said that’s because he wanted to save his own money. With that, I asked the waiter for a bottle of water to go and got up to go find the kid with the pizza. Steve’s like, “Where are you going?” I said, “You can’t eat a whole pizza dry… the boy will need a drink.” He just shook his head.
We walked all around Glasgow the next day, and unbeknownst to my hubby, we ended up covering about seven miles. He followed as I went to the places I really wanted to see, which included the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis. Steven waited for me at the front of the cathedral because he knew I’d be looking and taking pictures of the various markers located inside the ancient church and because it was so packed with visitors. I was down in the basement, looking at the Tomb of St. Mungo, when a strange siren went off. I continued to take pictures and then realized it was the fire alarm so I headed back to the surface to see everyone being rushed out of the church… did I mention it was packed? I started filming the crowds rushing out, mostly to get audio of the alarm, because it was really strange, and one of the young Scottish docents came running up to me to yell at me to stop filming and to get out because the fire alarm was going off. I told her I know and that’s why I was filming. She remarked you’ll burn up if there’s a fire and I replied, I doubt it, it’s stone. But I let her usher me out quickly and we headed up to the Necropolis.
The Necropolis was absolutely amazing! Established in the 1832, it is the final resting place for more than 50,000 prominent residents of Glasgow. Built on 37 acres, its monuments are massively impressive with multiple familial burials in the same plot. I felt like I had scored the genealogy lottery and none, at least none that I know of, are my family! So I walked up and down rows and up and down hills, until I remembered I had left my husband at a lower level because, frankly, unlike me, he doesn’t see the appeal of walking a field of dead people.
Poor man, I’ve walked him a lot on this trip and yesterday was no exception. We hit 10,000 steps in our first two hours of being out and about! And then it rained again. So he got a little break sitting underneath a building ledge protected from the rain but not from the Scottish pigeons.
When the rain let up, we continued on and I got the man on a public double decker bus. He even let me climb to the top just so I could get a picture from the top level.
The next stop was from him as we had appointments to get tattoos while in Glasgow at Forevermore Tattoos. Young Jamie did an awesome job and after about five hours, we both walked out with some cool new ink.
A good night’s sleep and a wonderful breakfast at an Italian restaurant located right next door to the hotel started our last day. After breakfast, I called for our first Uber ever to check out the local Glasgow Harley Davidson dealership. Mohammed showed up, and although it was a pretty bland ride (he wasn’t talkative at all), we made it to the dealership and a pretty nice open it is. Of course, as in Brussels, I didn’t walk away empty handed and came away with a couple of new tees and jewelry. Christopher, our next Uber driver who took us to the airport, was much more talkative and totally funny, mentioning he loves Uber Eats the best, while patting his belly!
At 
the airport, we sat down in a restaurant to have lunch and waited and waited for a waitress, before noticing that you had to download an app called Weatherspoon, in order to order. But after doing that, we had drink and food within 10 minutes… technology is often amazing.
A short hour-long flight and we’ll be on the next leg of this adventure… Dublin, Ireland!
And Life Goes On... 