Plank Road: Off to Glasgow

After riding on ferries and on the bus on Thursday for a long time, we needed a decent walk on Friday. We set off for a couple of walks in the Argyll forests and met no people, there was just us and the birds.

After our walk we drove to the Ardchattan Priory as I wanted to see late medieval carved stone slabs. One slab in particular is a lot older than the rest of the slabs having been carved in the 10th century.

As it was our last night in Argyll, it was dinner out, we selected a tiny restaurant off the tourist beat and it was really great. A table of loud-talking Germans were perfect for providing background noise in such a small place. The food was excellent, we both had mussels in a cream sauce with rosemary and our usual desert of a cheese board.

Today we took the car for a wash and a vacuum in Oban as it was pretty bad and we didn’t want to return it looking like we drove it through a bog. Then it was off to Glasgow to the airport to return the rental car. En route, we stopped in Inveraray for tea at the Argyll Hotel then walked around town a bit.

We don’t normally do this, but we took the dealio with the rental car where you buy a tank of gas upfront and then bring it back empty. The car rental woman tried to get us to pay in Canadian dollars but I said no way as that is always a rip off. As it turns out we did the right thing as fuel has gone up and the Canadian dollar has gained against the pound over the last four weeks.

Anyway, 20 miles out of Glasgow the car was screaming at us to re-fuel, we thought we better stop and buy a gallon before getting stranded on the M8 or on the big bridge or something if we ran out of fuel. So we did stop near Loch Lomond and buy a gallon of fuel. The car still screamed at us to re-fuel but we knew we had enough to make the airport. Fuel is expensive, about $2.20 Canadian dollars per litre.

When we got to the rental car return, the guy came out and looked at the fuel gauge and asked if we were Scottish since we ran the car right down to the dregs of the fuel tank. He thought that was brilliant and was right impressed that we washed and vacuumed the car.

Everything worked out great at the airport, we just had to cross the street to the airport bus and we were then on our way to central Glasgow. There are three main areas for travel in Glasgow: Central, Merchant City and the West End. You have to figure this all out ahead of time and decide where you want to stay, we chose to stay in Central Glasgow.

Our hotel is a new concept, Citizen M, where the rooms are tiny, a huge bed basically takes up the whole room and then there is a sort of bathroom pod. But the room is high tech with a remote that controls everything from lights to temps to the flat screen tv and the price is really good.

After dumping our luggage we headed out into Central Glasgow, Glasgow is a shopping mecca and the streets were jammed packed with people, John and I were in humanity shock after the isolation of rural Scotland. Glasgow is so different from Edinburgh, it is a mix of modern and old buildings and has a zillion bars and night clubs.

We dropped into the Mussel Inn and had a kilo pot of mussels each, they didn’t have a cheese board so we passed on desert. Then we went to a bar called The Pot Still and had a whisky, I noticed a sign for an Isle of Arran cheese board so we ordered the one to be shared by two people. This gynormous cheese board arrived, it was crazy really, it was loaded with every kind of Arran cheese and oat cakes. We ate maybe a 1/4 of it and then wrapped up the rest in our napkin to take away.

Then we came back to our hotel to change out of our hiking pants and headed off for a super night out to a concert by the Caledonian Fiddle Orchestra. They were formed in 1888 and tonight was their 123rd annual concert in Glasgow. The concert lasted for three hours and was a fantastic mix of airs, marches, reels and other traditional Scottish tunes. Also, there were guest performers which consisted of a family of six young girls playing tunes and a guy that played guitar and banjo who sang Scottish tunes.

The orchestra was mainly dressed in kilts for the men and tartan skirts for the women. The conductor has been conducting the orchestra for 30 years, he was hilarious and very informative. John and I got an applause for being from Canada and attending the concert. This came about when the conductor asked who was from overseas and he didn’t mean the other side of the Clyde hahahaha. Some New Zealanders yelled out, we didn’t, but the conductor said there are usually people here from Canada, anybody, so we waved from the back row, literally the back row and there were also some people from Australia.

After the concert we walked over to Babbity Bowster, another one of the million bars and had a whisky, there were about three guys in there playing fiddles. Babbity Bowster is named after an old Scottish country dance.

Glasgow is a really happening city, there are lots of trendy bars and nightclubs which we avoid and tonnes of bars to our liking. The streets are loaded at night with nightclubbing types and blokes yelling and singing after having a few too many.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting the east side where the rich merchants of the industrial age built their houses and I want to visit The People’s Palace and Winter Gardens.

Our neighbours in Argyll