Glasgow and the End of the Scotland Adventure

After searching for Nessie and coming up empty handed, the dynamic duo moved on to our last city for this half of the trip. We headed back to Fort William to cut inland and then south as we headed for Glasgow. Along the route we drove through Glen Coe (which I'll have to come back and actually hike through sometime) and stopped at the Hill House.

The Hill House is located in Helensburgh, just outside Glasgow. It was designed and built for Walter Blackie (of publishing house fame) by the most famous of Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Before we'd seen this house, Em and I had never heard of Mackintosh or known of any of his works, after we saw the house we were hooked. We wished that we could bring the man back to life and make him design a dwelling for us; it was that fantastic.

The house was built between 1902 and 1904 but appears as if it was built in the 1960s. The entire design has multiple levels of meaning and was designed to suit Mr. Blackie and his family. Mackintosh was famous for using small square cutouts in the different elements of his structures and then filling the cutouts with colored glass. He also had a rose motif that was repeated in main of his works. The Hill House not only had these tell tale symbols, but rooms were subtly color coded for males and females, places of contemplation and serenity were added everywhere (elements of chi and the like where visible throughout the home), and the style was simple, yet eloquent.

As a result of seeing the house, we fell in love with Mackintosh and were delighted to find that he is to Glasgow as Gaudi is Barcelona and his work is visible everywhere there.

Glasgow was our last city for this half of the trip and our last couchsurfing experience (for this adventure) as well. Here we stayed with a fellow aspiring filmmaker (Em and him talked film geekery all night), Bert, who happened to also be an identical twin and was a true Scotsman. Bert gladly gave us use of his living room to take over for two days and spent the evenings showing us the hip West End and all the coolest bars.

As for the city of Glasgow itself, Em and I enjoyed this place a lot more than Edinburgh; maybe cause we were going with the flow (instead of trying to see everything) or cause the feel of the place was just more friendly and homey and less touristy, who knows. We had returned the rental so we didn't have to deal with it and returned to our roots of walking endless miles in each new place. We wandered all over and saw probably only a fraction of the city itself. Of note in our wanderings were the Glasgow School of Art, the Lighthouse Museum of Architecture and Design, and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

The Glasgow School of Art was designed by Mackintosh and the only way to see it is by guided tour since it is still a functioning school. The tour was worth it and the architecture was as beautiful as that of the Hill House. The Lighthouse is a tall spire building with a top that can be reached by a seemingly endless set of stairs and affords a scenic view of the city. There are also wonderful exhibits housed on a rotating basis. Lastly, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is situated in the Kelvingrove Park (which we just happened to be staying on the outside of) and is a giant, free house of treasures. The Museum houses everything from hands-on exhibits to renaissance paintings and taxidermy animals. On a side note, the park that bears the same name is similar to central park and seemed to have an endless variety of ways to transverse it. I loved it at once.

After two days with the city, we said goodbye and headed via plane (a small commuted jet with the wings above the seats and a slightly freaked out Em) to Dublin and the second half our trip. Time is just flying by.