We didn’t make it all of the way to Glasgow in the boats, but we’re only a few miles from the city center from our Kirkintilloch mooring. After breakfast we bundled up and took the bus into Glasgow. The busses are very easy to use, and the fare was only $1.35 to go into the city. We only had a few things we were interested in seeing, but didn’t want to leave without at least a quick visit to Glasgow. Our first stop was the Glasgow Necropolis.This is a huge cemetery on the ground rising next to the cathedral. It is quite an impressive cemetery! Instead of many gravestones and a few monuments, it’s almost all monuments. The first one we looked at happened to be that of William Miller who wrote Wee Willy Winkie. There are many other notable burials, but probably more meaningful to the Scottish.

After the Necropolis, we visited the Glasgow Cathedral. It is huge, and beautiful! This was originally built in the 1100’s as a Catholic Church, but became Church of Scotland in the 1500’s. This is an impressive building with so much to see as we walked through it. 

Next we visited the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, which houses an large collection of objects representing many religions.

Then crossing the street we entered Provand’s Lordship, the oldest house in Glasgow, built in 1471. I thought our 1725 house was old. It was built as part of the nearby St. Nicholas Hospital and also served as housing for the canons of the cathedral and later an sweet shop. It was acquired by the Provand’s Lordship Society in the 1920’s and furnished with authentic 1600’s furnishings.

We walked around the city, found a cafe for a hot cocoa break, and then followed part of the mural trail back to our bus stop.

We had a 3:30 booking for the first bridge on the start of our journey back to Falkirk. We’ll have 2 more nights on the boats and short cruising days to get back to the boat base. The weather has been in our favor for most of the trip, and today was no exception. Just as we returned from Glasgow the rain began, and came down quite heavily as we had our pre-cruise siesta. A little mist as we set out and then it cleared up.

Tonight we stayed in Auchinstarry marina again, and treated ourselves to decadent chocolate desserts in the restaurant – moist chocolate cake soaked with hot fudge and drizzled with chocolate ganache. Not a crumb was left!