Scotland Day One

Journal 20110611

I'm sitting in our hotel room, in the Gleddoch House Hotel Golf Club and Spa, drinking tea and eating a shortbread cookie while I write. Life could be worse. It's about 45 degrees outside with a light drizzle, and naturally there are people on the golf course playing anyway. I like Mark Twain's comment that golf is a good walk, spoiled, so I'm not tempted, even here in the home of golf. I must say the courses we've seen are just beautiful. But enough about that.

We left Phoenix yesterday morning at 6:50 AM, and landed in Newark for a 5-hour layover. Can't say I found much to recommend about New Jersey, at least the airport. The flight "over the pond" was uneventful, but sleep eluded me uncharacteristically. Because of that, I missed some of the guide's information about Glasgow because I had to inspect the inner aspect of my eyelids. They're fine.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, our driver, Stevie, took us to the center of Glasgow, where we visited the Glasgow Cathedral. The cathedral building was started in the 1300's, and took about 100 years to complete, with additional wings added over the next couple hundred years. After the Reformation, the church was Presbyterian rather than catholic, and eventually it was turned over to the city of Glasgow. I couldn't tell if they still have church services in there anymore, or not. The structure is smaller and less impressive than Canterbury Cathedral, but it is still amazing to look at. The lower portions are obviously ancient. I'm hoping to post pictures either on Facebook or on my blog, depending on the speed of the Internet.

Alongside the cathedral, there is a museum, the St. Mungo Museum of World Religions. St. Mungo is the patron saint of Glasgow. He died the 600's, and nothing was written about him for another several hundred years, so he's somewhat apocryphal. Anyhow, the church was built on the location of his grave and that of another holy man, Fergus, whose body Mungo brought to Glasgow for burial. If I were a Glasgow native (Glasgowian? Glasgowite?), I would try for a different saint. Mungo sounds like a character in a western movie that would star Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. But back to the museum. It is a small museum that celebrates great world religions, including Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism, and so on. The displays are interesting in that they are somewhat random, so you have to pay attention and can be surprised by the juxtaposition of different beliefs.

We went to the O'Connor pub next, and Denise and I split "Chicken Supreme," which is a chicken breast stuffed with haggis, served over mashed potatoes with whiskey gravy. It was amazing, and we were glad we shared. Upon our return to the hotel, Denise and I took a hike that landed us in someone's back yard, sort of. If you can call the rear garden of a Scottish estate a back yard. The rain drizzle was light enough that it just added to the charm of the place.

Our hotel overlooks the Firth of Clyde, which is more or less a long bay or fjord-like area where the River Clyde empties into the ocean. The hotel was built as a manor for a shipping baron, Sir John Lithgow (not the actor). I can't tell how old it is, but I'd be late 1800's. It's on 360 acres of rolling grass (much of it golf course). There was a wedding reception here today, with the men all in kilts. We saw a 3-4 year old boy in a kilt, and I must say he was very cute.

Dinner was in the hotel with our group, and it was fabulous. I may be required to buy an additional seat on the plane if I keep eating like this.

Tomorrow, we're going to the Isle of Mull. Later.