Our road trip ended in Glasgow, another enchanting city with a feel different from Edinburgh but with photo opps around every corner.
Here we explored for two days before making our way to Newcastle, where we explored some more, returned the rental car, and took the overnight ferry to Amsterdam. Glasgow and Newcastle had treasures of their own to discover, and we tried to find them all.
(All photos ©2012 Betsy and Mark Blondin)
We arrived at our hotel mid-afternoon and took off exploring immediately, down Byres Road to the University of Glasgow, founded in 1451, and which is as photogenic as it is impressive.
It was fun to explore the campus. We were the only ones around since it was summer holidays and late afternoon, and these arches had us imagining students passing through here for hundreds of years.
Another view of Glasgow University from inside the courtyard.
Looking at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum from the university campus. This museum and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh are remarkable in that they are museums with natural history, science and technology and history, as well as art galleries — literally something for everyone. Also, they are both admission free!
The grandeur and scope of Kelvingrove is challenging to show in photos, there is so much to see and learn.
Salvador Dalí’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross at the Kelvingrove.
A conversation piece display, to say the least, at Kelvingrove.
On George Street approaching George Square, the main square of the city where there is always plenty of activity.
The Glasgow City Chambers, home of the city council dominate the square and were opened in 1888.
George Square is named for King George III, but many people point out that there is no statue of him on the square because the people were so unhappy with him for losing the colonies. 🙂 The statues around the square do include those of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Robert Burns, Thomas Campbell, and James Watt.
Transportation around Glasgow is easy. Central Station sits conveniently at George Square, and the subway circles the center city so you can’t get lost.
We thought the Glasgow Subway was very cool and user-friendly. Then we were even more impressed to find out that it’s the third-oldest subway system in the world, opened in 1896.
Glasgow Subway station in neon.
The People’s Palace and Winter Gardens is an amazing place and one of our favorites. It tells the story of Glasgow since 1750 through the people’s perspective.
The People’s Palace was opened in 1898 as a cultural center for the people and since the 1940s it has been a museum of Glasgow’s social history.
The Glasgow Necropolis land was made into a cemetery for the upper classes in the 1800s. It is adjacent to the Glasgow Cathedral and affords beautiful views of the cathedral and the city.
From Glasgow, we drove straight to Newcastle upon Tyne in order to have some time to see the only city we were visiting in the UK outside of Scotland.
Newcastle has plenty of remarkable sights, streets with stairs and tunnels, and an eclectic waterfront on the River Tyne.
We wandered the waterfront on the evening we arrived in Newcastle. In this photo, beyond the Tyne Bridge with the Olympic Rings, you can see the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, the BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, and The Sage Gateshead, a conference and performing arts center.
Looking back from the BALTIC past the Millennium Bridge and the Sage to the Tyne Bridge and Newcastle on the right.
The BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art’s home is a renovated old flour mill.
Inside the BALTIC, there is a stairway where you look down into an infinity mirror, a fun photo opp.
Newcastle’s Central Station, opened in 1850, was one of the prettiest we saw on this adventure.
The Port of Tyne International Passenger Terminal with our ferry to Amsterdam waiting behind the entrance… and we say ‘see you later’ to bonnie Scotland and the UK.