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Travel |
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Dedications for Scribe Weekly Radio
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Glasgow Short breakBy Steve BoyleIf you've never been to Glasgow a short break is an ideal way to get a flavour of the city. Glasgow is City which oozes history and culture and yet at the same time is modern and dynamic. There is a wide range of accommodation to suit every budget and taste. After a quick hunt of the papers and the net and we managed to get the Travel Lodge at the Airport for £30.00 per night. Not bad for a room which will accommodate up to two adults and two children and has all the usual on Suite, TV [including Cbbies much to the delight of our youngest] and coffee making facilities. The price is room only but you can have a cooked breakfast for about £8.00 or continental for under £5.00 which would work out very pricey for a family. We found an Asda supermarket about four miles away in the Phoenix retail park at Linwood where you could get a full cooked breakfast for £2.25 or cereal and milk for 50 pence. There are also a range of fast food outlets and a multiplex cinema in the same park. Interestingly when we tried to book the offer online with the online promotional code it came up with no rooms available at the promotional rate yet when we called the freephone number and quoted the promotional newspaper code we got a room no problem. As said the lodge we stayed at was at the Airport which is about six miles out of the City. This is not a problem as its bang on the motorway which runs right through the middle of Glasgow. What is a problem though are the lack of the Brown tourist signs which direct you to visitor attractions. When we did see these often they indicated a slip road which was different from the one you expected from your map. And worse still when you got to the exit there was never any indication of whether you should go left right straight on or just hang around and hope for the best. Never a good idea in a busy city where being in the wrong lane can mean a major detour in the wrong direction. Once we abandoned what signage there was and started to rely on our map things went a lot better. Glasgow Science Centre
Our first trip was the Glasgow Science Centre a
relatively new feature on the banks of the Clyde. The Science Centre is
one of the biggest Millennium projects in Scotland. It's made
up of the Science centre itself , an IMAX cinema and the Glasgow
Tower The brochure tells us " The tower is the only building
in the world capable of turning 360 degrees from the ground up. Its
built to an aerofoil design to minimise wind resistance and it's entire
height can turn in to the prevailing wind." The snag is it's not
actually turning at the moment in fact it's completely closed. I'm not
sure what the problem is but they hope to have it back in operation in
the Autumn . People have been very critical of these so called
Millennium projects. But in my mind any problems that there
have been is because they are Projects for the new Millennium. They are
cutting edge. No doubt the guy [or gal ] who invented the wheel had to
knock a few edges of it before it was perfected. I'm sure that the
Tower will be a major tourist attraction in it's own right for years to
come. So leaving that aside for the moment we're left with the IMAX
cinema and the Science centre itself. Having done the IMAX bit
elsewhere before we thought we would spend a pleasant four hours or so
in the Science centre and then go off and do something else. How wrong
could we be! We ended up staying the whole day . We didn't know what to
expect but we soon found out that Glasgow has another world
class attraction. The Centre is spread over four floors the ground
floor has the usual restaurant, tat shop and an E-Learning
centre [ Computer Games and internet room to you and me]. The Burrell Collection The Falkirk wheel The Falkirk Wheel is about 45 minutes to the north
of the city [ on a good traffic day] The wheel is a key stage in the
reinstatement of the Forth & Clyde and Union canals which once
linked Glasgow and Edinburgh. It's another Millennium project but so
far this one has worked right out of the box.. "In the past,
the two canals were connected by a flight of 11 locks, which dropped
the canal 33.5m over a distance of 1.5km. British Waterways, however,
were keen to present a more visionary solution and The Falkirk Wheel
became a reality" The wheel is fast becoming an icon of grand
engineering in much the same way as the Forth Rail Bridge. And here's
the good news after you've paid the £2.00 to park that's it you can
wander around the visitor centre and get within feet of the wheel
itself. There are boat trips on the wheel which will set you back
£16.00 for a family 2+2 ticket. Such is the popularity of the wheel
that you are advised to book these in advance I wont trouble you
further with the statistics check out the website or better still just
go there. Especially if you heading North or travelling south past
Stirling it will only cost you about an hour on your journey.
Click here to see a model of the wheel in action
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The first floor is where
the centre really comes to life every few yards there is a new
interactive exhibit to get to grips with. To make your way around the
first floor and have a go at everything there is to do takes a few
hours and there is still another two floors to get through.
They say that today's children aren't interested in Science, Maths and
Engineering . Not so: if its done well then they are very interested
indeed and this it has to be said is done well. In addition to the
exhibits there is a lecture theatre and regular interactive lectures
are given when we visited the topic was using light in
medicine. There is also an excellent planetarium said to be the best
currently available in the UK and a 3D theatre some of you may have
come across this type of thing at Disney but believe me the one at the
gsc is not showing "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" . There is a 3D view of a
car and the chemical structure of a drug . If you haven't experienced
3D virtual reality before it can be a bit unsettling as the car seems
to morph around you . Great fun though to see the kids trying to touch
empty space. Fortunately for the squeamish the autonomy film was only
in 2D I'll leave you to discover the delights of that one yourself
fascinating stuff though. These theatres run at regular times
throughout the day but my advice would be to get in the queue early
especially for the 3D virtual reality theatre which is smaller than the
other two. In short a great day out our admission for a family of Five
was £19.50 the IMAX and the tower run at similar prices although you do
get a slight discount for a two item or three item ticket. My advice
would be to devote a day to the science centre then save the other two
for another day.
Our next
trip took us to the Burrell collection. Most people will have heard of
the collection but for those who haven't: The collection was gifted to
Glasgow in 1944 by Sir William Burrell and his wife Lady
Constance. Burrell was basically a local lad made good. He amassed
great wealth in the shipping business and used that to fund his passion
for art. He became an internationally respected collector and amassed
over 9000 items. When he gifted the collection Burrell stipulated that
it must be housed in a building 16 miles from the city centre in a
rural setting. Sadly when he died in 1958 a suitable site still had not
been identified. It was not to find a permanent home until 1967 when
Mrs Anne Maxwell and her family gifted the almost 400 acre Pollock
Estate and house to the city. Whilst this was still inside the City
boundary it was decided that this represented the best opportunity to
house the collection in a rural setting. An open architectural
competition was launched which was won by a group of three
architects Barry Gasson , John Meunier and Brit Anderson. The
collection was eventually opened to the public in 1983. The building
attracting much acclaim and awards. Save for a small parking charge
admission is free and free guided tours are available. I have to say I
hated the outside of the building but
when you get inside you don't really notice the structure. It
allows the exhibits that are light tolerant to be displayed in good
space and light around the outside whilst those that are less light
tolerant such as paintings and textiles can be exhibited in areas
towards the middle of the building. The collection encompasses many
periods from recent day to the ancient world. Here you will find
Oriental and Roman ceramics , Dutch engraved glass fine European
paintings and tapestries and furniture to name but a few. I just love
this sort of stuff. The enjoyment for me is to see these pieces which
have been created hundreds of years ago or in the case of some of the
exhibits from the ancient world 1000's of years BC and reflect on what
a story each piece could tell. Sadly we had only a couple of
hours to spare next time we will stay a lot longer.
