Heading to a Castle in Glasgow!

 06-14-2022

It's time to put our apartment back together and hit the road.  We have sandwiches for the road and are ready to walk around the corner to the car.  There's a very slight drizzle but it's so light that it doesn't matter and it's a very short walk to the Tesco parking lot where the car spent the night.

These clever sunshades are built into the windows, but not in the living room,
where Ginger is sleeping on the sleeper sofa!

Tetris!  We win!

We've had such good luck with the weather!  The only rain has been either while we've been driving or sleeping!  And you can't even call this rain!  They haven't been to Florida!! The Highlands are so gorgeous, with the Scottish mists rising. 

Leaving Oban behind

No wonder it's so quiet in the back seat!

On a whim we pull off to see the  Falls of Falloch and are pleased that it is a short hike and they are lovely.  Of course, there is a longer way to come back that someone takes!

Further down is Inveruglas, in the Loch Lomand and Trossachs National Park.  There is a huge hydroelectric plant here and you can see the pipes running down the side of the mountain.  When they need more power, they just release more water.

We've made it to Glasgow and have some time before we can check into our castle (really!) so we locate a car park and go exploring.  We're looking for the School of Art with Tricky Rick compares to the Gaudy!  We trudge along the pedestrian shopping street and finally arrive, only to find it completely shrouded in scaffolding.  We knew there had been a terrible fire in 2014, but we strike up a conversation with a lady on the corner and she tells us that there was another one after the reconstruction!  There's no telling when it will finally be reopened. She heard from a friend who works at Edinburgh University that the whole thing was very mismanaged. Our new friend is looking for an apartment for her son who will be attending the school and is having a very difficult time finding anything.  She has also heard from two students that their classes are nearly all on line and they don't feel that they are learning anything.  Things don't really change from country to country.

The sign says to keep two chevrons between cars.

Nearing the town of Paisley!

The grittier side oof Glasgow.

There are a lot of murals.

The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall!

Look way in the back;  there's a pair of yellow Doc Martins!

Aren't these cool!!

There it is, the School of Art

This is on the building where classes are currently held, right behind it.

Does this bother you?

Metro station

We head back toward the car, Connie, Marilyn, and I each have one more thing on our shopping lists. Connie and I have gotten lucky, but Marilyn is still looking for a Peaky Blinders cap.  We give it one more shot in the Buchanan Galleries (a mall that is accessible from our parking building) but have no luck.  We pay for our parking and set out for Sherbrooke Castle.  It's all going swimmingly until Gwyneth want us to take an exit from a roundabout that is closed for road work.  We have to drive a long way before she gives up on sending us back to that roundabout and chooses another route.  We're only a couple of miles away!!

There's our castle. It's a real castle, on the national register and everything, but it's kind of a miniature.  It has a bar and restaurant, which is good since we refuse to drive into the city again tonight for dinner!  We have two junior suites which are quite lovely - but not at all like being in a castle!  No tapestries or rock walls or period furniture or anything.  But the bartender is quite charming and the dinner that Ginger andd I choose is wonderful - Pan fried rump of lamb with minto (?) potato croquette, Mediterranean vegetable stuffed courgette, pea puree, and red wine jus.  We have a lovely malbec from Argentina, Brassos to go with it.

Peter

The view from our room of the serfs' quarters.

Before dinner, though, there's a trip to the bar.  Marilyn has a wee dram, Connie has lemon cello, and Ginger and I have rusty nails after teaching the bar tender what that means!  He throws us a curve by asking which Scotch we want!!  Duh??  He makes a suggestion and we go with it.

Then there's dessert - three orders of white chocolate and raspberry cheese cake and one chocolate torte! After dinner we have a long conversation with a couple, Alec and Robina, who are conservative Scots. Many topics are covered;  but the thing I'll remember is that Robina thought we were all younger than she, somewhere in our sixties!  If you want a more detailed  recap of the discussion, check out Ginger's blog! I do recall that Alec told us that England has something Scotland doesn't.  A good neighbor!  Also, Alec is in town to film part of a program about his late uncle's unsolved murder!!

Connie is going to stop by the bar and order a lemon cello cocktail for her dessert drink in her room!

Connie and Marilyn go out to the car to get their things.  We've already done that, so we retire for the evening. After venting about the lack of "castleness" we're experiencing, Ginger texts the other room to ask them which tapestries they have on their walls!  Connie asks for a picture of ours and Ginger produces one from her archives!  Connie claims that we took that picture in the hall. Then she tells us that she has to go because the handsome Scot is waiting to give her a massage before her bath!  We say that we hope he has enough strength left after leaving our room! We've laughed all evening!

Ginger caught me in action!