Trip to Scotland, Day 2

Yesterday was our first full day in Glasgow. I still felt the last traces of jet lag in the morning, because Mr. BooksandTea had to wake me up at 9. Vacations in new and exciting cities means no time for lounging!

We spent the morning visiting three places clustered together: St. Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art, Glasgow Cathedral, and Glasgow Necropolis.

St. Mungo’s was intriguing. So much so that most of the thoughts I have about it are better suited to a post of their own later on. That being said, parts of it were very confronting, and it felt kind of weird to return to the regular world after visiting it.

The cathredral was old and musty and damp, in the best way. We walked around the surrounding grounds and looked at the graves and memorials there, many of which were rendered illegible by moss and time. The interior was equally weathered. A few years ago, we went to the UK and visited Winchester Cathedral in England. There, everything was white and sun-flooded; Glasgow Cathedral feels like the opposite of that, much more grey and mysterious.

After that was the Glasgow Necropolis, which continued much in the same vein of reckoning with the weight of the past and with your own impending mortality. The graves here were less overgrown, but still noticeably so. But the natural environment lent it a certain mournful loveliness, with rows of planted poppies and magpies wandering about. Amid the grey of the graves and the green of the hills, there were brightly painted gates in blue, maroon and orange, providing the occasional startling pop of colour.

Through it all, Mr. BooksandTea and I were nearly completely alone. Kind of a sobering contrast to the busy crowds at the Cathedral.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the core of Glasgow, mostly in the Merchant City area. We found a distillery close by after leaving the Necropolis, which was the perfect place for lunch. I ordered a steak and sausage pie, and Mr. ordered the haggis burger.

Dinner was at a pizza place called Nonna Said, which was so substantial that we had leftovers to take back to the hotel. My pizza was black garlic and roasted pepper and his was the meat lover’s kind .