When traveling we try to alternate between visiting a rural location and a big city, so Glasgow followed our stay in Ballintoy, Northern Ireland. Our condo was right downtown near then main shopping and business areas. Not much in the way of great photography, but of course Doug, the visiting photographer, got me out to make the most of it. The photo above shows a typical color of the buildings in Glasgow, contrasted with some very bright red flowers.
When you click on “Continue Reading” a slide show of six photos will play at the TOP of this article.
It is obvious Glasgow is a very old city with modern shops tucked away in several hundred year old stone structures. Few of the buildings are more than four stories tall and are made of stone. All appear a very drab blackish gray or beige, stained years ago by coal-burning and not cleaned since. It is a shock coming from Ireland with its chipper, brightly colored doors and buildings and endless lush green countryside. Glasgow is a working man’s city. My attached photos will show you some of the newer buildings in Glasgow, which seem to go out of their way to be very modern. But the overall tone of the city is gray, with gray skies to match, just right for some black and white photos. As a side note, we looked for days to see if we could find anyone wearing a baseball style cap and in our five days visit, we saw none.
In stark contrast to Italy, it should be pointed out the total lack of graffiti throughout England, Ireland and Scotland. In Glasgow there were large construction zones with the typical plywood boards surrounding the activity, begging for some spray paint artist, but there was none. One construction site had poster after poster of movies and other city ads and none of these were defaced. Whether it is a cultural thing or if heavy fines are involved, I do not know, but the British Isles re basically graffiti free zones.
This is also where I tasted my first haggis, an event so important to me it warranted its own separate BLOG. (See Sept. 6, 2014) Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and voted yes in the referendum regarding separating from England. All the restaurants were fine and of course finding a good pub was not difficult. However, I do not believe many people go to Glasgow to vacation; there are plenty of other spots in Scotland to holiday. My photos show you the illuminated purple Millennium Bridge reflected in the Clyde River and many columns or cloisters at the Glasgow University. Also the largest music store I have ever seen and the largest in Scotland is in Glasgow, called guitarguitar, so I photographed some of their inventory.
