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Published: September 21st 2017
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The next morning we had breakfast at the lodge before heading straight north to Glasgow, where we planned to do an afternoon walking tour. Grabbed lunch on the way, and managed to check in early to our Airbnb in Glasgow and use the parking area at the back of the apartment. Which is HUGE. We knew it was larger than what we needed but it proved difficult to get something with free parking and a washing machine for the three nights. So this place is a two bedroom, has ridiculously high and ornate ceilings. The master has a king sized bed and could have fitted two or three of them in the room. Needless to say it would be quite sufficient for three nights.
We grabbed a train into town in time to join our Glasgow walking tour, which turned out to be five of us plus the guide. We then spent the next two and a half hours paying to walk some six kilometers around the city.
The tour started at George Square and took in the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis, where we looked at some of the large family plots of long dead people. We also walked
through the Glasgow Green, saw the Doulton Fountain and People's Palace, plus wandered down The Clyde.
We also passed the Barrowlands Walkway, the Barras and the Clutha, all of which mark Glasgow's music history. The Clutha was also the site of the chopper crash a few years back, where a few policemen in a police chopper crashed into a building and saw locals trying to rescue the occupants.
The tour also took us past many of the city's murals. Many of the city's brickworks now have huge pieces of art on them, paid for by the city to brighten up the city and local areas while supporting local artists.
There is the Billy Connolly Mural, the Badminton Mural, Strathclyde University Wonderwall (UK's largest mural), St Mungo at High Street, Clutha and Hip Hop Marionettes.
With sore feet, but having had a stunningly sunny day in the city, we grabbed take away fish n chips and spent the next five hours doing three loads of washing in the world's slowest front loader.
The next morning was the first real sleep in, with both of us waking up when the 8am alarm went off. We grabbed some
breakfast at home, having gone to Sainsburys to stock up yesterday, and then headed out to Stirling Castle.
Stirling Castle is one of the largest and most historically important castles in Scotland. It sits on a huge hill with three steep cliffs which gave it a strong defensive position and made it an important fort. It was also used as a palace as well as a castle.
We saw the King and Queen's apartments, where they would meet and 'accept' guests of importance. We visited the Great Hall with its boat like ceiling (restored), the chapel and peered under the Great Hall, wandered the gardens, and looked at the cannons.
We were relatively lucky that the weather held off, with just a little drizzle during the free castle tour we did and then as we were starting to leave.
Grabbed lunch at the Unicorn Cafe at the castle before driving back to Glasgow. After dropping the car off at the apartment (via a fuel fill up) we headed back into Glasgow city centre to do a tour of Central Station.
Having looked at the weather forecast the day before we gathered we should find an
indoor activity to avoid getting too rained on.
The tour of Central Station was essentially that, a behind the scenes look at the station, through the subterranean passageways beneath. All accompanied with hearing stories about people who have travelled on the tracks and stood in the platforms.
The guide was interesting and entertaining, even if at times his strong Scottish accent was hard to understand! He told a lot of stories about the station's use in transporting deceased person's back from World War 1, where they would be left in an area for their next of kin (usually wives, daughters or mothers) to go down and identify their loved one from rows and rows of bodies, only to them pay someone at the station to help them carry their bodies upstairs. From what I could gather it was because the government at the time only thought that their responsibility extended to the station platform.
He also told tales of huge rats and his own research, finding tickets and old cigarette packets and memorabilia in unused areas of the station, and creating an oral history of the station as he talks to people who used or worked at
the station. A most interesting and unique tour, would be interesting to see if his plans to create a museum and a few other walking tours comes to fruition.
Then it was back to the apartment in the pouring rain where we opted to have pizza delivered for dinner so we didn't have to deal with the rain again.
Next morning after breakfast we hit the road, this time through to Oban which is a port town in western Scotland. Took the scenic route past Loch Lomond which is the largest inland stretch of water in a Great Britain. It has lots of little islands scattered through it and is part of the Great Trossachs Forest National Nature Reserve. We also saw a couple of other lochs on the way through to Oban too, it was just over a two hour drive.
Oban is a very cute town with a number of sights to see, but we limited ourselves to two, the sea front in town and the Oban Whisky Distillery.
It is one of Scotland's smallest distilleries and is right in the city centre. It has just two stills and produces about a million bottles
of whisky a year. We did one of their tours and learnt about the process they take to produce the 14 year old product that they are known for. We had two tastings, one of the eight year old version of it and then one of the real 14 year old version. Seemed ok but then I am not much of a whisky person as we all know. We did get to keep the glass from our tastings though which is a nice souvenir, especially given we haven't been buying much of anything in this trip!
Then we wandered through town and grabbed fish'n'chips ad ate them on the esplanade in the sunshine. Another surprisingly sunny day despite the morning rain and fog. So after a lovely lunch we wandered back to the car and headed back through the national park, taking a different (and longer) route back to Glasgow. We stopped for a few photos along the way and also for afternoon tea, before hitting some peak hour traffic back into Glasgow.
We grabbed some very average Thai food for dinner to round off the day, along with packing up most of the things strewn across the too-large apartment in preparation for tomorrow's departure
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