we had a lovely sleep in on sunday, before heading off to breakfast. our room at travelodge glasgow central included a buffet breakky, and being a sunday, it was open til 11. we'd both slept really well (the hotel chain has recently improved the beds in every room as standard, which were very comfy... even if we didn't get the kingsize bed that was advertised everrrrrywheeeere), and were pleasantly surprise by the shower - i've had terribly bathroom experiences at other chains, but this shower was possibly... better than my own.
we had a list of things we still wanted to see, but it was a well deserved rest and refuel. the breakfast was pretty good - the service was great and when they had run out of eggs half hour before closing up, they had no problems in making us some fresh ones, which was awesome news as i love how hotels make their scrambled eggs so... fluffy. i cannot replicate this myself, at all, ever.
once we were done eating, we headed back to the room, packed up our matching bags, and headed to the subway - desperate to figure out their 'inner circle' and 'outer circle' system. we picked up a couple of day passes for the trains, but... totally unneccessary. singles would have worked just as well.
our first stop was kelvin grove to find the last of the smug pieces we weren' able to find in time on saturday, and then we wandered aimlessly through the dog park, watching the itty bitty critters excitedly chasing their balls and sticks, and one particularly stupid one, its own tail. it was a really blue day and we were enjoying the sun on our faces once again!
we kept walking until we were at a crossroads; glasgow university on one side and the national art gallery on the other. with a slightly less walk in one direction, we headed to the art gallery. the magnificent building loomed out of the ground overhead, and the bright orange of the stonework really glowed against the blue skies over head. we knew we'd made the right decision! we did no elect to go in, rather deciding that the gallery of modern art in central glasgow was more our thing, so we headed back to the subway, and headed in to town.
we found the goma via a very busy starbucks on buchanon street, and then were forced to sit on the steps of the gallery before being allowed to enter, sans beverages. well, we sat and drank our coffess before heading in... to find all but one gallery closed. which was something that would have been nice before sitting on cold concrete for ten minutes before throwing the remainder of our drinks away in frustration. there was some cool selfie mirrors though, so hope was not all lost.
after that, we headed up; lynsay and gary had suggested we head up the lighthouse to get the best views of the city. i mean, they weren't wrong. i counted 138 steps up the winding staircase, which is just over a third of the amount of steps in monument in london city, which i have climbed and will also never climb again. there was no indication before climbing just how many there were, but it certainly was well worth the climb.
at the top we almost blew away. it was a matter of holding dearly onto the phones, the worry was too strong that they might blow out of our hands. we were able to walk around 80% of the perimeter, so we were able to get a full view of glasgow city in all its glory. i mean... i dare you to beat that view? it was about 1pm at this stage, and we were famished. again. out train was just after three, and we had only one restaurant that we just had to try; bread meats bread. ore on that another day.
we'd had two really great days in glasgow, and it totally made up for the bollocks travel time and lack of real days to spend in the city. i think we did an incredible job of fitting all the best bits in, but i definitely look forward to getting back to see the rest.
