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Published: July 24th 2014
Passing the Baton
Passing the BatonWe arrived in Glasgow on Friday evening, July 18th, and left on Sunday afternoon. Glasgow is a sprawling urban area with universities, museums, pubs, large buildings, and a small, circular subway line. Very different from Edinburgh. On Saturday, our first day there, it rained the whole day. The miserable weather made for a less than ideal introduction to the city. We still saw the Botanical Gardens, Glasgow University, the Hunterian Museum, and the People's Palace. We needed to walk around but weren't able to enjoy the city because of the rain. We spent most of our time in the botanical gardens inside, and the main part of the university we saw was the Hunterian Museum (it's on campus). The museum was started by William Hunter, a polymath who mainly taught and practiced medicine and anatomy. The museum contains his collection of specimens and historical artifacts as well as others acquired more recently. The People's Palace, on the other hand, is a museum about Glasgow and the people and history of the city. The two museums were both interesting but very different.
On July 20th, we got a bit of a late start and only had half a day in Glasgow,
Queen's Baton Relay
Queen's Baton Relay so we did not see much. But we did get to see part of the Queen's Baton Relay for the Commonwealth Games. We only waited for about 10 minutes to see the Baton passed from one person to another. The games are taking place in Glasgow, so the Baton was in the city for the last 3 days of the relay. We enjoyed seeing part of the relay, especially since we left Glasgow before the games started. After that, we spent a few hours at the Lighthouse, which has a view of some of Glasgow and a museum. The view wasn't that great since we were only on the 6th floor, but at least it was clear since the weather was much better. The exhibits we saw were about the Commonwealth Games and what Glasgow has done for them. It was interesting but seemed more like a giant publicity stunt than a museum. But after that we had to head to the bus station to catch a bus to Liverpool.
We only spent about 24 hours in Liverpool, arriving Sunday night and leaving Monday. On Monday, we started off with a free walking tour of the city (as we
tend to do). We saw St. George's Hall, the Empire Theater, William Brown Street, St. John's Gardens, the Eleanor Rigby statue, the Cavern Club, a WWI monument, Town Hall, a Banksy painting, Liverpool Parish Church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas, the docks, and Superlambananas (yes, these are sculptures of a combination lamb and banana). After the tour, we went to The Beatles Story, which is the museum about the Beatles. It was great to see Beatles artifacts and learn more about them from people who knew them or were around Liverpool in the 1960s. There are two buildings in the museum, and the second one contains an exhibit about Elvis and the Beatles (which we did not go through since it cost extra), a gallery of previously unseen photos of the Beatles, and a very weird movie called the Fab 4D. We thought the movie would have SOMETHING to do with the story of the Beatles, but no - it only used their music with a completely random story line. At least we didn't pay extra for it. But after visiting both sections of the museum we needed to go back and get our bags before heading to the
bus station to take a night bus to Ireland. We both assumed it would be an eight and a half hour straight bus ride with no stops since we specifically booked a trip with no transfers. We wanted to have enough time on the bus to be able to fall asleep. Unfortunately, the bus company failed to mention that there is indeed a transfer - off the bus and on to the ferry to Ireland. We assumed that we would stay on the bus while it was on the ferry, but instead we needed to get off and then find couches to sleep on on the ferry. It was not comfortable, and we are still not happy about the misrepresentation, but we made it to Ireland!
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