Marching to the Beat of the Guidebook

Vacationing is different, for some people.

Some people like vacations to start… lazily. They sleep in, pad around in their pajamas, read the paper in a desultory fashion, have a half cup of coffee, succumb to sleep yet again, and get up at around noon to begin the day in earnest. Most people do not plan to meet their hosts at 7:30 for a bit of chat and a brisk walking tour of the city followed by a meal at an historic tea house, a visit to a National Trust house and its gardens (all three hundred and sixty acres of said), followed after that by a visit to yet another museum and historic fountain and greenhouse on the other side of the city, followed by a quick walk to the Quay and dinner and watching the sunset in the freezing cold.

It’s death march with guidebooks!

Okay, okay, fine. We’re exhausted, but we’re smiling. The fact is, we save sightseeing for when we have guests so that we’re not bored by seeing the same things repeatedly. (Also, it’s just more fun to play tourist when there’s someone else lugging around a camera.) We hadn’t yet made it to the Burrell Collection at Pollock Park, nor to the Pollock House, nor to the deer park and any of the three hundred and sixty acres of surrounding gardens, riding trails, and golf course. We’d also never taken tea at the Willow Tea Room in Sauchiehall Street, which is the original tea shop that was designed in 1904, and with guests, we had a perfect excuse to indulge.

What’s nice about Glasgow on a weekend morning before eight is that really, there’s nobody much about. We drew only a few strange looks as we made our slow progress up various streets, stopping to take pictures of every signpost, architectural detail, flower, plant, or storefront. T. began her day-long quest to avoid being the subject of any of N.’s photographs. K. strode ahead, stopped and waited a lot for N. to stop snapping pictures and walk.

Eventually we made it to St. George’s Square. It only took us an hour.

We were warned by the cabbie that The Willow is expensive… it’s definitely not a shop that provides a traditional Scottish breakfast type of meal with the grilled tomatoes, beans, and black pudding — however, they do put out a nice, light breakfast with some lovely pots of tea. D. had his usual smoky lapsang souchong, N. had Scottish Breakfast, K. had Mackintosh Festival, which is a special Willow blend, and T. had Kenyan tea, which is a more full-bodied version of Assam. We ate quickly because we knew we had a lot of ground to cover.

A word to the wise: if you’re going to a National Trust property in Scotland, you will not be allowed to take pictures. This was a bitter disappointment to D., who is enjoying his new camera, but fortunately the Pollock House has extensive grounds, and it’s always permissible to take pictures outside. The gardens at Pollock Park — laid out in formal geometry or in grassy, flower-spotted hillsides — are simply gorgeous, and though it was very chilly, the sun briefly made an appearance to allow us to think that we had some hope of being warm.

The highlight of visiting the grounds was — aside from the sheer beauty of bulbs popping out in random locations — finally getting a shot of a magpie. These birds are all over the place in open spaces in Glasgow, but they’re canny little twits — they take off immediately if D. tries to snap their picture. It’s a shame, too — because they’re gorgeous. Visiting the Deer Park at Pollock Park yielded us no deer — but Highland cattle and the best shots of magpies we’ve gotten yet.

We were blown away by the Burrell Collection. Just. Blown. Away. We can’t wait to drag every single guest we have out to Pollockshields to see this fabulous art collection. The gallery is beautiful, with its window and wall construction so perfectly balanced that at times one feels as if they’re outdoors. The rooms are filled with medieval tapestries, religious iconography, armor, costumes and artifacts from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and a lovely collection from feudal China. Stay tuned for more of our adventures…

– D & T

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