I find January one of the hardest winter months as it’s cold, dark and there’s no Christmas to look forward to any more! So this year we planned a quick weekend winter getaway to Glasgow; two weeks after starting back at work we jumped on an overnight sleeper train to Scotland!
The Caledonian Sleeper was such an exciting way to start our trip and made it feel like we’d begun our holiday before we arrived. No faffing around at airport security, we just jumped on board and were greeted by friendly staff, a cozy bunk bed compartment and the offer of haggis, neeps and tatties for dinner.
After being rocked gently to sleep by the train we were woken next morning by a cup of tea delivered to our room. It was barely 8am and felt so surreal to be arriving refreshed in another country when most people were having a Saturday lie in. We headed across the city to have breakfast at the Hyndland Cafe, which served us an amazing Scottish breakfast with tattie scones, lorne sausage and haggis, as well as everything you’d get in an English fry up. Thankfully the icy walk had worked up our appetites!
What we hadn’t prepared for was the amount of snow that fell on Saturday morning! Snowball fights, slithering around on icy pavements and changing sodden socks added to the magical holiday atmosphere of our weekend as we walked around in a wintery Narnia landscape.
KELVINGROVE
Having been to Glasgow many times before, and briefly living here, the trip was focused on introducing Dan to the city. But the one place I was determined to visit again was Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. A beautiful purpose-built building that sits at the edge of Kelvingrove Park, it’s my favourite museum to visit; it’s not too dauntingly huge, yet it houses some amazing collections of Scottish history and has Salvador Dali’s famous painting Christ of St John of the Cross. We spent a couple of hours learning about Charles Rennie Macintosh and listening to the amazing organ being played. Best of all, I got to show off where our breakfast came from – a small pig-like hairy ‘haggis’ was stuffed and displayed along with the real animals waiting to trick unsuspecting tourists!
BYRES ROAD
As we couldn’t check in to our hotel for another couple of hours, we wandered along Byres Road, the ‘high street’ of the West End and stopped for lunch at Hanoi Bike Shop – a packed, colourful Vietnamese restaurant where we had Pho, a traditional noodle broth, along with some amazing pork spring rolls and very garlicky green vegetables, yum!
MONO
In the afternoon we had a stroll around the university and Kelvingrove Park, quickly sampled the shopping in Buchanan Street – so much more relaxed than crammed crazy Oxford Street! – before going to Mono, an all vegan restaurant in the city centre with friends. This was another food highlight of our day with seitan burgers, burritos, tofu fish and chips, oreo cheesecake and bakewell cake on the menu. A quick Ceilidh in the bar round the corner was a fantastic end to the day.
In the afternoon we had a stroll around the university and Kelvingrove Park, quickly sampled the shopping in Buchanan Street – so much more relaxed than crammed crazy Oxford Street! – before going to Mono, an all vegan restaurant in the city centre with friends. This was another food highlight of our day with seitan burgers, burritos, tofu fish and chips, oreo cheesecake and bakewell cake on the menu. A quick Ceilidh in the bar round the corner was a fantastic end to the day.
GoMA
Before we hopped on the plane home we quickly visited the impressive Gallery of Modern Art on Sunday morning.This was one of the most special ‘city breaks’ I’ve had in ages – we found so many free/cheap things to do in Glasgow and really good restaurants and cafes … People’s Palace, House of an Art Lover, Riverside Museum (Transport Museum) and The Kibble Palace are on our ‘for next time’ list already; we’ll be back soon!