The People’s Palace in Glasgow is set into a park (I love parks) and has a tall and imposing fountain in front with Queen Victoria on top. From the outside, the palace doesn’t really look like much, but inside it offers an engaging experience. The museum is free, like most museums here, and it’s all about the people of Glasgow, their history. It’s well done, and I’d recommend a visit if you ever find yourself in this city. We learn about war times, slum landlords, tough times, laundry houses, prisons, public executions, the Scottish drinking problem, and generally how the people of Glasgow used to live. We would have liked to visit the glasshouse, but unfortunately, it requires extensive restoration work for which donations are gladly accepted.
Modern Art Museums are always a bit tricky for me—most of the time I don’t get the “art.” It’s just not my thing, but there is one exhibit I enjoy here: it’s a film that shows a huge setup of ”mechanical consequences,” like a giant setup of falling dominos, except this isn’t with dominos but more elaborate and creative. For example, a weight would swing on a string and hit a bucket with fuel that falls over and strikes a match that sets something on fire, which, once burned down, sets something else in motion, and somehow the sequence is so captivating that my friend ends up urging me to keep going since the film is thirty minutes long, and I would totally watch the entire thing. A family is sitting in front of the tv when we get sucked in and leaves after we’ve been standing there for maybe ten minutes already, mentioning in passing by that they thought they’d make it all the way to the end… and once they leave, we find that they’d only needed to stay four more minutes… I’d probably start the entire film all over to get to the point where we joined, but alas, when travelling with someone else, we’re not always as free as when solo.
In front of the Glasgow Cathedral is a religious museum, which I only enter because my travel companion wants to… and it is indeed a rather depressing affair that we abandon after a short time when we get to the darker chapters of Christianity—nothing new here. The Cathedral itself is rather gothic with high peaked arches and, of course, stained glass windows. It is impressive every time I walk into very tall churches, and of course that is the effect that was intended—for the common folk to feel small and insignificant in the presence of such high enclosed spaces which compel to look up. The wooden ceiling exposes its structure to the observer, and the arches repeat their pattern in several layers. Down in the vault, we find a few tombs, but to me, the architecture of the building is much more interesting than the religious displays. We soon go back outside as it’s chilly and we’re both hungry, and there we pass another building nearby with the omnipresent Queen Victoria residing atop its entrance.
On another day, we go to the Kelvingrove Museum where we are greeted by a keltic music and dance group that is drawing crowds of onlookers. But we are focused on getting inside—I’ve read that the museum hosts daily organ recitals and I don’t want to miss it. The organ is right in the entrance hall, a few rows of chairs are set up facing the instrument, and we find a couple of empty seats. The organ player is from a local parish, and he chooses to perform a wide variety of crowd pleasers, from Frank Sinatra to “Sweet Caroline.” To be honest, that isn’t quite what I was expecting from an organ recital, remembering very somber but beautiful organ music in European churches, and I am happy that he at least plays one fugue by good old Johann Sebastian Bach. Remarkably, during the performance of this most beautiful piece of his entire set, the audience thins out… people just don’t know what’s good. After the performance, we explore the museum and find that it’s actually very big as it’s housing art galleries and natural history (stuffed animals) and marvels of engineering (a spitfire aircraft is hanging in the hall). I enjoyed the fact that they also have a Rodin sculpture; after my visit of the Bucharest European Art Gallery I was able to pick it out immediately (the truth being that I saw it and thought to myself, that looks like the Rodin sculptures, and then seeing the tag confirming my feeling).
I concur with Richard. Fantastic pics. Wow the quality of the camera on your phone.
C
Stunning photos again Dee thanks for sharing I particularly like the one in Prison 🙂 steeped in history at every corner of this beautiful part of the country, so much to learn & places to visit.