Sunday 28 August 2022

A brief return to Glasgow

The River Clyde, Glasgow

 

Greetings, all, from this interminable summer. Although the light has subtly changed in the past week or so - the shadows now have a softer edge and the days are growing shorter - we are still suffering through temps in the high 20s and low 30s, and it's been very, very humid. *YUCK* 

I am happy to report, however, that we have had two days when it has actually rained for a couple of hours, a blessed relief to all. 

A few weeks ago we had a brief jaunt back to Glasgow, for the first time since 2017 (good grief - where did those years go?!). We were attending the wedding of our neighbours Rich and Alex, in company with a number of other Frensham residents and staff.

We'd long been considering our travel options. With the airports in turmoil due to lack of baggage handlers and other staff, and British trains not only being the most expensive in the world but also currently subject to industrial action (which we wholeheartedly support - solidarity with the workers! ✊), we made the environmentally less friendly decision to drive. 


Yes, that's green grass in Cumbria!
The tops of these hills are always treeless and quite dry-looking, but look at the grass
lower down the hill and along the side of the road


Google Maps told us the journey should take about seven hours so we added another three to allow for pit stops and the inevitable congestion / roadworks / enforced detours. We set off at 8am, pleased to be leaving behind the continuing extreme heat in the south of England (high 30s) and heading to relatively cool Scotland.

It was fascinating to see that as soon as we reached Cumbria (the Lake District), the scenery magically transformed from a parched, yellow landscape to a lush, green one. Although rainfall is also down in the north of England, they have not suffered the same extremes of temperatures for months on end and they have had regular periods of wet weather.


Welcome to Scotland
- still warmer than I like it (about 27ºC) but close to 10ºC cooler than Surrey!


It was great to return to this very interesting city. Glasgow really does have a lot of beautiful architecture, and we were pleased to see that despite Scotland still being the 'poor cousin' to England economically, there's a lot of regeneration and development throughout the city. 

We happened to visit whilst the World Pipe Band Championships was in full swing, and the streets were full of kilted and otherwise suited pipers, hauling their instruments around the city each day to gather on Glasgow Green for two days of intense competition.


Glasgow City Chambers, just down the hill from our hotel in Glasgow



The Beresford Building on Sauchiehall Street
- about to be redeveloped into apartments



Victoria Bridge, Glasgow



Decorative detail of the Albert Bridge in Glasgow



Sunlight through the decorative sides of the Albert Bridge in Glasgow, 
creating lovely patterns on the pavement



Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art



The iconic statue of the Duke of Wellington, which since the 1980s has sported
a traffic cone. This started as a prank but was embraced with gusto by Glaswegians and the cone
is now a constant fixture, the style of cone changing with the seasons.
You can read the story here - people power!



Building that formerly housed The Glasgow Evening Citizen newspaper, on St Vincent Place.
It's now office space and a bar and restaurant called, sensibly, The Citizen



The Princes Square shopping centre on Buchanan Street in Glasgow.
Built in the 1840s, the building façade is crowned by an art nouveau metalwork peacock,
with 'foliage' that extends down the building - these were added in the late 1980s


In reacquainting ourselves with this city it became clear there are still plenty of places that are run-down, and there is clearly still a significant population of underprivileged, but we've always found Glasgow to be incredibly friendly. We'd hesitate to walk down some of its less salubrious streets after dark but every city has such areas. 

And we've always been drawn to 'edgy' places, Berlin being a good case in point. There's nothing I like better than wandering around a city that proudly wears its history on its sleeve - contemporary buildings shouting their economic prosperity while around the corner there are crumbling buildings scarred by war and graffiti through the decades. Glasgow provides endless examples of this kind of juxtaposition between the haves and the have-nots.

The day after the wedding, which was held at WEST Brewery located - confusingly - in the eastern part of central Glasgow, near Glasgow Green (which, by the way, was where the piper championships were being held), we trudged from one end of the city to the other for the entire day, revisiting familiar attractions and scoping out new ones.


There are several murals depicting Billy Connolly around Glasgow.
This one was on Osborne Street


The 'rustic' entry to The Hidden Lane in Finnieston, Glasgow



Vibrant colours have transformed this little nook -
part of The Hidden Lane in Finnieston, Glasgow


Quirky shops and galleries in The Hidden Lane in Finnieston, Glasgow



Pipers sinking pints in The Hidden Lane - at 10am on a Saturday morning!
Ah, Glasgow... 🤭


One of the reasons we love Glasgow is the food, and I'm sure that surprises some of you. 

Now, Scotland might be infamous for its reputation of deep-fried everything (remember the 1990s culinary low of the deep-fried Mars Bar?), and certainly the health statistics of this country indicate that the everyday diet of many Scots is less than ideal. However, every time we've been to Glasgow be have been blown away by the superb quality of food, and particularly the local Scottish produce and - my favourite cuisine - the Italian food. You might recall we spent last Christmas in Edinburgh and discovered the standard of food there was very high, and that more elegant city probably has a great number of high-end venues, however as I reported in my blog post back in 2017, we have consistently found that Glasgow has the best Italian food outside of Italy.

As such, a priority for this short visit was to return to Sarti on Bath Street, where five years ago Kevin ate his own body weight in mussels in spicy tomato sauce. On the first evening of this trip we had been tired after the nine-hour drive from Surrey and made do with a buzzing, gigantic pizza place just around the corner from our hotel. It was really noisy and vibrant, but that was fine as we didn't want to linger. We saved the return visit to Sarti for our final night in Glasgow. We were not disappointed! 

Once again we were charmed by the friendly vibe of this busy, family-run restaurant which offers authentic Italian food, with a far broader range of dishes than you are offered in southern England, including many vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. This place has moved with the times whilst retaining traditional elements. The seasonal specials are always worthwhile, and I enjoyed pasta served with a lentil ragu while Kevin opted for pesto. We just about saved room for dessert - although it was superb, I couldn't quite finish the Torta della Nonna which you can also order for home delivery if you live in Glasgow, but  Kevin managed to polish off one of the dessert specials, the chocolate orange cake which was as moist and orange-y as it should have been, with a gooey vein of orange custard running through it. 


Believe it or not, that's a starter serving of Cozze alla Livornese o Cozze
(Blueshell mussels in garlic, chilli & tomato)
- Kevin's long-awaited favourite dish at Sarti Bath Street


Sarti's superb Torta della Nonna:
light shortcrust pastry filled with lemon crema pasticciera, topped with icing sugar and pine kernels


One of the day's dessert specials at Sarti on Bath Street: chocolate orange cake



Il meglio del buona - 'the best of the good'
And yes, Sarti on Bath Street is all that!
(and there's a truly superb espresso under that wafer)




'Pardon?'
Noisy but vibrant - Kevin struggling to hear me at Paesano in Glasgow (pizza place)


We also found excellent breakfast venues each morning, delighted to discover that one is able to order a 'long black' in many venues across this city. If you are not familiar with Scottish cuisine, they do indeed eat haggis for breakfast as well as something called square sausage (formal name Lorne Sausage). Naturally, as non meat eaters, we were able to resist these temptations but I did enjoy vegetarian haggis with my poached eggs on our first morning. 

Further culinary indulgence was had via a return visit to the now fully-restored Mackintosh at The Willow on Sauchiehall Street, the fourth and final tearooms established by Miss Catherine Cranston to provide alternatives to venues based on alcohol consumption. Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Miss Cranston had collaborated several times however in 1903 he was given free rein to design every element of these tea rooms, including furniture. Following some decades of neglect, in 2016 a massive restoration project set about returning this venue to its former glory, and the tearooms opened once again in 2018.


Breakfast view - from the excellent Wilson Street Pantry


Some of our fellow breakfast diners at the Wilson Street Pantry
- pipers getting ready for another day of competition



Kevin was served an entire avocado for his breakfast at
The Wilson Street Pantry!



My breakfast at The Wilson Street Pantry - poached eggs and vegetarian haggis
on sourdough



Mackintosh at the Willow - the now fully-restored tea rooms on Sauchiehall Street,
designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Miss Kate Cranston and opened in 1903


Duchess Grey tea served in traditional Willlow Pattern china.
Apparently the only argument Mackintosh and Cranston had, in all their years of association,
was over this china - Cranston was for it, Mackintosh wanted plain white



Kevin's choice at Mackintosh at the Willow - a strawberry, cream & short pastry concoction



The Front Saloon on the ground floor of Mackintosh at the Willow in Glasgow



The Gallery Mezzanine at Mackintosh at The Willow in Glasgow


The tearooms at Mackintosh at the Willow have a shop and small museum adjacent.
It's well worth the £5.50 to wander through the exhibition - it is excellent


Of course our trip to Glasgow was not without its cultural highlights. For many years I've wanted to visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, particularly since its refurbishment in 2006, but somehow I just never got around to it. So after an invigorating one-hour, post-breakfast walk, we arrived at this red sandstone icon built in the Spanish Baroque style in 1901.

The interior is absolutely sensational, particularly the great hall with its soaring ceilings and gigantic pipe organ which boasts the world's longest-running free daily organ recital. 

I was particularly interested the gallery's collection of items relating to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his coterie, but was also pleased to discover an artistic group with which I was previously unfamiliar, the Scottish Colourists - Francis Cadell, Leslie Hunter, Samuel Peploe and J.D. Fergusson.


Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow



The great hall of Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum in Glasgow



Floating Heads installation by Sophie Cave at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow



J D Fergusson’s sculpture composed almost entirely of round shapes:
Easter, Hymn to the Sun (about 1924)
- part of the Scottish Colourists exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow

A Lady in Black by FCB Cadell, 1925
- part of the Scottish Colourists exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow



An array of fabulous objets designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and other Scottish art nouveau artistes, including:
(back, left) Domino Clock designed by CRM, made by interned German craftsmen on the Isle of Man in 1917
(back, right) Pair of ebonised wood, mother-of-pearl and silver candlesticks designed by CRM (1905)
(front) Copper kettle designed by one of CRM's contemporaries, Christopher Dresser (1880-1885) 



One of a pair of panels designed and made by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh for the 
Ladies' Luncheon Room in the Ingram Street Tearooms in 1900-01:
The Dew



A very poor photo given the restricted lighting in this part of the exhibition, but how fabulous
is this cutlery at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum?
These were part of a 12-place setting of dining cutlery commissioned by artists Jessie and Fra Newbery in 1902 as a gift from their parents

And lastly, a brief and random selection of photos that form a microcosm of this trip - including, of course the wedding that prompted our return to Glasgow.


Pipers, pipers everywhere!


I loved this window display just down the street from Sarti on Bath Street



Glasgow is full of delightful historical gems like this fantastic art nouveau entrance.
In the early 20th century this would have been the height of architectural sophistication

WEST Brewery in Glasgow, the venue for the civil ceremony and reception of our friends Rich and Alex



Candelabra and wildflowers as centrepiece for the tables at Rich & Alex's wedding
at WEST Brewery, Glasgow



Yours Truly and Kevin, in our finery for the very informal wedding on a very warm day in Glasgow



Another shot of the wedding venue, this time in the early evening sun - WEST Brewery in Glasgow


Statue of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Finnieston, Glasgow

Here's hoping by the time I next publish a post, the UK climate has returned to something akin to normality. Come on, Autumn!

Until next time,

- Maree  xo


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