A walk through Glasgow

James took me on an interesting walk on Thursday; a scenic route from University Avenue down through Kelvingrove Park, over the footbridge at Charing Cross and along Renfrew Street. We had been to our French (me) and Geology (James) classes in the afternoon, which we are still both mightily enjoying. Having arrived in the west end by train, we decided to head into town on foot, since we were going to a concert at the City Halls in the evening. We cut through one of the University’s quadrangles and emerged at the top of the park from where we saw a stunning view over the city. The sun was low in the sky, lighting up the buildings laid out below us. Then we strolled down into the park where we joined other walkers and quite a few cyclists, all wrapped up against the November chill. We continued over the Charing Cross footbridge; the traffic below us was already backed up towards the motorway and we were glad that we weren’t in the queue of cars. As we walked along Renfrew Street we passed the renovation work being done on the burnt out Art School. That is going to take a long time to complete I should imagine, because the building was almost completely destroyed by the fire. We had to divert round the block behind it because of course it was fenced off. And then we arrived into the busy city centre.
Along Sauchiehall Street we strode, then down the hill to St Vincent Street, where we stopped for a drink in old favourite All Bar One, and found that we were definitely in the target age group although most other people were in groups and wearing office clothes. And then the last leg of our journey took us to the Merchant City where we had a delicious curry in Koolba. It even passed James’ stringent standards!
The concert was Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, preceded by Prokoviev’s “Chout” suite, and Marbé’s Eine Kleine Sonnenmusic (a tribute to Mozart and very heavy on the percussion). It was all very enjoyable and yet none of it particularly stood out for me. We got the train home in time for a cup of tea with the boys.