We awoke Sunday, July 27 to gray skies but we would not be deterred from walking Glasgow.
First, we enjoyed the full breakfast that was part of our stay here. Scrambled eggs, baked beans, pastries, and pancakes. Good coffee as well. The Nescafe packets in our room are surprisingly good. And the coffee machine in the breakfast room had many nice choices. They had standard to-go cups like we have but the machine would only fill them 2/3 full.
Later, we walked through Glasgow Green next to the River Clyde and up through neighborhoods to The Necropolis. This is a hill within Glasgow completely covered with burial grounds and crypts. Many tourists wandered around with us. We just happened to walk by the memorial to William Wallace. It reminded me of the movie “Braveheart” with Mel Gibson so we decided we’d watch that when we got back to our room. (It’s a 3-hour gore-filled yet entertaining flick.)
Across the “bridge of sighs” was Glasgow Cathedral. It was Sunday morning, and we wondered if we could get in. People were coming in and out so we did, too. There was an after-service gathering going on and we mistakenly tried to join in, but then got shooed away since that area was off-limits to tourists for another hour. Nevertheless, we got some good looks at the stained glass windows and burial crypts in the cathedral.
We were spending time doing other things while waiting for our brewery tour appointment so went down the hill to the Drygate Brasserie for a beer and a snack. The area is Drygate due to the fact that since beer has been such a big part of the Glasgow culture, many times providing it for free as long as you went to church, that they had to filter out those that had been drinking too much at “the gate” before they went into church. Evidently, being drunk in church was a no-go kind of situation.
We had some focaccia bread, olives, and Nightmare of Cake stout which was delicious.
We weren’t sure we would enjoy the brewery tour as Tennent Brewing is a huge brewing company and pretty much survives on sales of their lagers. We were surprised at the fun we had with the guide Stewart and the other attendees. We did also appreciate that Tennent Brewing puts a lot of effort into being environmentally responsible and engages in many sustainable practices.
Drygate Brasserie was our dinner spot too. The steak and sausage pie was great! We shared this and had another Nightmare of Cake. Really pleasant!
We walked back the 1/2 mile to our hotel and settled in to watch Braveheart. Not a bad way to finish our first full day in Scotland.
Dogleggers on the Trail 