On Saturday we decided to visit the city of Glasgow. It’s just an hour’s train ride away. We only had the day, so we went on a guided tour of the city. I’m often reluctant to do the tours, mainly because they cost money and I could probably find out the information myself if I tried really hard, but it really was worth it. We saw and understood a ton of things that we would have missed. Plus we didn’t get lost.

By reputation, Glasgow is a bit of a gritty city, kind of stabby and murderous. This was not what we encountered; we thought it was wonderful and quirky. According to our guide, things have really turned around particularly this decade for the city. Once Glaswegians found out that they were going to hold the Commonwealth Games a few years ago, they buckled down and remade the city into a truly beautiful place, full of art and life.

Here is the Duke of Wellington in front of the Modern Art Museum. He is wearing a traffic pylon decorated in flowers. According to our guide, the city spends about 10,000 pounds a year removing pylons from his head.

Much like Atlanta, Glasgow has a lot of large murals. The mural below had only been unveiled a few days before. It depicts St Mungo, the patron saint of the city, with his mother. If you are a really cool nerd, you may remember the reference from Harry Potter–St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies. St Mungo’s mum had a hard time of it; she was raped, got pregnant, and then had to escape death at the hands of her father. But like a boss she managed and St Mungo was born. He is depicted here with a robin because one of his miracles involved bringing one back to life after some evil classmates had killed it.

Here is another mural with St Mungo as a homeless man. The tour guide said this reflects his concern for the poor.

There are beautiful monuments and churches throughout the city as well. The church on the top left is dedicated to St Mungo.

Here I am in the Necropolis with St Mungo’s church behind me.

Although I strongly suspect our tour guide has been deceived by a false etymology, the tower above, the “Tollbooth Steeple,” is what she said inspired the word “hangover.”

The Tollbooth Steeple is where prisoners would wait to be executed. In the square around it, people would come and watch the spectacle as men were hanged above them. The day would involve a lot of heavy drinking and the resulting headaches the next morning were called “hangovers” because of the memory of the people “hanging over” them the day before.

Incidentally, our tour guide talked an awful lot about hangovers, both personal and otherwise, and had us try a special Scottish soda, Irn-Bru, said to cure them, so she might be right about the etymology.  Irn-Bru tastes like bubble gum cream soda and it’s orange. It outsells Coke in Scotland.

We also went to Glasgow’s most famous museum, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. It’s in a lovely building. The red sandstone is very characteristic of Glasgow in particular.

There was a display on masks.

Finally, for all my really cool nerd readers, I have the following: the TARDIS! TARDIS-es are used as shops all around the city. We checked: they are bigger on the inside.