University of Edinburgh, Semester in Scotland 2011: Day Trip to Glasgow

The Wednesday after I got back from Oxford some friends and I decided to spend the day in Glasgow. We took a train and it only took about an hour and a half from Edinburgh. Glasgow has such a reputation here in Edinburgh that we thought it would be a shame to go back to America without seeing it. I was pleasantly surprised by the city, especially considering all of the things I have heard from Edinburgh natives. It definitely has a reputation for being a rough city (apparently it has some of the worst gang violence in Europe..yikes!) Although I'm sure there are parts visitors would want to avoid, I thought it was really nice. It is definitely much larger and more urban than Edinburgh and the buildings are slightly newer (18th/19th century I think), but still had and Old World charm that is hard to find in the states.

We decided that the best way to get around was to take a bus tour, and after being heckled by two different companies in competition, we decided on one that would take us to all the major tourist areas and the West End. The tour began in George Square, which marks the center of the city. It's a pretty large area lined with statues of lots of famous people and royals from the 1800's. The next stop was the Doultan Fountain which was really pretty and very Italian looking. A lot of the major sights in Glasgow are modelled off of Italian influences and there is an area that is completely based on a Venetian piazza, which I thought was really interesting.

Our first hop off sight was the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. The gardens were really impressive, and we were lucky to have a really nice day. We spent a lot of time in one of the greenhouses (lots of venus fly traps..pretty cool!) For lunch we had fish and chips at a local chip shop where we met a woman who had a great Glaswegian accent. When one of us asked for a knife she quickly explained that she couldn't give out knives by law, probably a sign of how bad the gang violence is in Glasgow (red flag?) We felt completely safe the whole time, but I thought it was pretty telling that you practically couldn't get a knife in the whole city!

greenhouse in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens

George Square in the Glasgow City Centre

Our next stop was Glasgow University. It was beautiful! I am convinced that the University of Edinburgh students are just jealous of the Glasgow campus. It would probably explain all of the trash talking. The buildings that are original at the University of Edinburgh are much older, but many were rebuilt in the 1970s which was a source of major controversy. At the University of Glasgow pretty much all of the buildings look as though they have been there since its establishment in the mid 1400's. We walked through one of the main quadrangle areas and explored the main buildings of the campus.

University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow quadrangle area

Next, we headed to Glasgow Cathedral. We also got to cross the Clyde River into the famous West End, which is famous for being a really nice part of town and has some really old pubs. As we crossed the Clyde, we could see some of the old ship-building rigs that made Scotland internationally famous during the Industrial Revolution. We also saw GOMA (the modern art museum), but sadly couldn't go in. Once we arrived at the cathedral, we walked the kirkyard which is up on a hill across the street from the church. The cathedral itself was absolutely huge (probably quadruple the size of St. Gile's). We walked all the way through it, and even got to visit the underground part which was really beautiful. The cathedral is famous for being one of the very few in Scotland that survived the Scottish Reformation, so this was a really rare opportunity. We spent the rest of the evening at an old pub that was established in 1797 and arrived back in Edinburgh around midnight (big day!) It was a really nice day, and I'm glad that I can say that I have been to Glasgow since it's such a historic city.