Glasgow, Scotland - 03/28/17

Glasgow Coat of Arms

" Here's the bird that never flew

  Here's the tree that never grew

  Here's the bell that never rang

  Here's the fish that never swam "

Motto: Let Glasgow Flourish by the preaching of Your word, and the praising of Your name.




We arrived in Glasgow on the third day in Scotland, saving the best for last, I suppose ?. As we know, Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, followed by Edinburgh, and the third largest in the UK.
Glasgow was a very important city in the Industrial Revolution, becoming a center for chemicals, textiles and engineering, specially shipbuilding and marine engineering.
Glasgow's economy suffered greatly after the World Wars, which advanced industries in other parts of the world, such as Japan, the US, and West Germany. It's economy declined and industrialization decreased, leading to high unemployment, an overall decay in health and population decline.
The population of Glasgow peaked at 1.228.473 in 1993, having always been high. There are accusations claiming that the overcrowding in the city, and the city's economic influence was one of the reasons for the creation of the 'New Towns Act of 1946', which created several new towns in the UK, 5 being in Scotland (which we learned while in Livingston). The Act caused large-scale relocation and boundary changes, reducing the population of Glasgow to 599,650, but it still kept the highest density of any Scottish city. Glasgow was filled with slums at this point.

Interesting Facts:

• City of Glasgow Police in 1800, one of the first municipal police forces in the world.

• Glasgow became one of the first cities in Europe to reach a population of one million

• Glasgow is located on the banks of the River Clyde, in West Central Scotland. Its second most important river is the Kelvin river whose name was used in creating the title of Baron Kelvin for the Scot-Irish mathematical physicist and engineer William Thomson, who studied in Glasgow, and thereby ended up as the SI unit of temperature, the Kelvin.

• In 2005, due to health inequalities, Glasgow had the lowest life expectancy of any UK city at 72.9 years

• Glasgow is Scotland's main locus of Gaelic language use outside the Highlands and Islands

• Glasgow has the most extensive urban rail network in the UK outside of London with rail services travelling to a large part of the West of Scotland

• The world's first international football match was held in 1872 at the West of Scotland Cricket Club's Hamilton Crescent ground in the Partick area of the city. The match, between Scotland and England finished 0–0.

Last Stop in Scotland, unless we find another interesting place to go.



We arrive by George Square, the main square in Glasgow which almost all of our stops surround. One of the stops is Glasgow City Chambers, the headquarters of the city council since 1996 and built between 1882 and 1888.
Laid out in 1781 and named after King George III, George Square was part of the development of Glasgow's new town.
Similar to Edinburgh, Glasgow also planned a new town in the city with more rational grids.
For the first few years of it's settlement, George Square was little more than a muddy hollow used for slaughtering horses. By 1850 the surrounding area had become a market centre and the square was made into a private garden, until a mob successfully claimed the area.
The Square was used as a film location for the movie World War Z

 We decided to visit another arena, after being to O2 in London, to understand better what exactly they are. We learned that there is a very popular one here in Glasgow, called the SSE Hydro arena, which was opened in 2013.

The arena hosts a very wide range of events, from concerts to children's shows, indoors acrobatic events, sports, Olympic events, awards and wrestling matches such as WWE and UFC.

It was the 8th busiest arena in the world in 2016, selling 751.487 tickets.

The construction of the SSE arena took only two years to complete, from February 2011 to April 2013, which we think is very little time, congratulations for the Glasgow government and the company Lend Lease for the construction.

To get to Glasgow Science Center we went through Clyde Ark, a curved bridge opened in 2006 which crosses river Clyde at an angle. The bridge takes four lanes of traffic; two for public transport and two for private and commercial traffic, along with a pedestrian and cycle pass.



We got to Science Center without any problems, there were lots of people heading this way too.
Science Center in Glasgow is a five star visitor attraction, similar to Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, and it's composed of three main buildings; Science Mall, Glasgow Tower and an IMAX cinema. The Mall is composed of interactive science related experiences, a planetarium, an area dedicated to human health, cafeteria, gift shops and flexible rooms.
Glasgow Tower is right by the Science Mall and is quite an impressing view, more so when you realize that it is a world record holder for the largest rotating tower, with 127 meters (417 ft) and 360° of (computer controlled) freedom. The tower has a lift with a capacity for 6 guests plus 1 staff, or maximum of 12 people. Though the tower has had many engineering problems throughout it's history, including an incident where 5 people were trapped in the lifts to only be successfully rescued five hours later.
In the IMAX cinema building is, as suggested, Scotland's first IMAX cinema, opened in October 2000, two months prior to the two other buildings

We couldn't possible summarize all that we saw in this giant exhibition, the best we can do is show another person's experience: [Glasgow Science Center], [Fun at Glasgow Science Center]

Going through Bells Bridge, a rotating bridge, we cross river Clyde once again, this time to get to Mitchel Library in the Charing Cross district, 1.3 miles away.

 The library was opened in 1877 by a bequest from Stephen Mitchell, from Stephen Mitchell & Son tobacco manufacturer (later Imperial Tobacco Company).
The library currently contains a collection of 1.213.000 volumes, most of them reference material. An extension was built in 2005 containing lending material.
It might be too late but we started our language learning here, we tried to learn a bit of Icelandic and Portuguese in preparation for our next stops.
Aside from that, we got a quick read, this time A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and made our overall research about the city.



We made another cultural visit, to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, less than a mile away from Mitchel Library. It is also one of Scotland's most popular attractions.
It is very refreshing to see that there are so many different things to see in the places we go, it makes it really worth it to travel so far.
The gallery was opened in 1901 for the Glasgow International Exhibition, held in the same year, and was intended as a place to hold concerts.
Today the museum houses over 8.000 exhibits and has received 2.23 million visitors in a year, being the most popular free-to-enter museum in the United Kingdom outside London.
Kelvingrove AG&M has one of the finest collections of arms and armour in the world, important European artworks and paintings, a great collection of Egyptian artifacts and tumbs, statues, early models of vehicles and objects from ancient human history, such as stone tools and primitive technology.



Our last stop is 4 miles away. We turned back and crossed Bells Bridge again to visit what we heard is "The best park in Europe" Pollok Country Park, a 146 hectare (360 acre) public park. Originally a private park and home to the Maxwell family for over 700 years. It was donated to Glasgow Corporation in 1966 by Mrs Anne Maxwell with the condition that it remained as a public park.
Being a country park, all the beauty is in the nature, the extensive botanical collection and gardening patterns within. We couldn't find any exercise or skill development equipment within the park, all there was to see was nature and perfect man made gardens and landscaping. We decided to spend some more time here and absorb it all, after all there is so much variety and plants from all parts of the world, we took some time to appreciate the details and the ecosystem living in the park.
After the experiences in the park we decided to move on to another city, this time in another country.