A Day in Glasgow

Wednesday morning our ship landed in Greenock, the port for Glasgow. We took a bus to the city, and then went on our own to the attractions we wanted to see. We were delighted to see this great city, a place full of impressive and large-scale Imperial-age Victorian architecture. A taxi took us out to the Burrell Collection, which has a vast array of art including famed Medieval stained glass, ancient art, furniture and more. Sadly, the modern building, an impressive one, has structural defects and will be closed next year for four years. The upper level of the Museum was already closed, so we were only able to see a small selection of paintings. Some of the best were by the Impressionists, including Degas, Manet and Monet. After we left the collection we returned to the city center, to visit the 13th-14th century Cathedral of St. Mungo, who introduced Christianity to Scotland. But this was closed for an hour, and lacking time we decided to leave the cathedral and go to lunch near the heart of town, St. George's Square. We had a delicious lunch at Nippon House, a Japanese restaurant. After that we took a cab to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which is housed in a huge Victorian building, finished in 1901. Though we were not very interested in the stuffed animals, dinosaur bones or other natural history artifacts, we enjoyed parts of the art selections, including some little known Scotch artists of the early 20th century, the 17th century Dutch painters, such as Ruysdael and Rembrandt, and more Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, including Pisarro, Signac, Matisse, Braque and many others. As we left the vast museum, it started to rain, but we were lucky to have a taxi stop and return us to St. George's Square where our bus left for the ship around 3:18 PM. We were happy to be back on board, out of the rain, and after dinner we enjoyed a show of Scottish music at the Princess Theatre on the ship. -Dan