Travel to Scotland

Day 10 Glasgow (Kelvingrove museum, historic center, Riverside museum) (87 Km.)

(in 34 km.) Glasgow: We started the visit to the city by two museums, which contrary to what you might think, liked the children very much. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is the most important museum and art gallery in Glasgow (Scotland) and has one of the largest collections of civic art in Europe. The museum is the second largest tourist attraction in Scotland and the most visited museum in the United Kingdom outside of London. In his collection of more than 8,000 pieces are works of art, archaeological pieces, fossils, etc.

The archaeological collection of Egyptian art is remarkable, like the sarcophagus of Pa-Ba-Sa; and equally remarkable is the medieval armor called Avant, dateable around 1440 and made in Milan; It is considered the oldest that remains almost complete throughout the world. The part of the museum dedicated to the Natural Sciences is important, with a marked popular and didactic vocation. The museum even exhibits a stuffed elephant, which is known as Sir Ralph. Especially surprising is the room in which this elephant, giraffe and other stuffed animals are found, in contrast to the plane that hangs from the ceiling.

The first piece that stands out when arriving at the Riverside Museum is the ship located outside the building, belonging to the Tall Ship Museum. It is the Glenlee, built in Glasgow at the end of the 19th century and first used as a merchant ship and later as a school ship of the Spanish Navy, where it remained active from 1922 to 1982 under the name of Galatea. The Riverside Museum is a new building designed by Zaha Hadid for the Glasgow Transport Museum, completed on June 20, 2011, at Pointhouse Quay, along the Clyde River.

The museum has 10,000 useful m², with 7500 m² of exhibition halls. The facades and roofs of the building are completely covered with two hundred tons of zinc-titanium. Completely glazed, the ends of the museum contrast with the whole sinusoidal structure. With more than 3,000 objects on display, we find among the collection items such as skateboards, train locomotives, historic cars, an exhibition of motorcycles, a fire truck or even the recreation of a metro station or a street of Glasgow from the first half of the twentieth century.

After visiting the two museums, we left Glasgow's West End and moved to the historic center. The neighborhood that has become the heart of the city is Merchant city. The main shopping centers are Buchanan Galleries and the St. Enoch Center (located adjacent to St Enoch Square), with the up-market Princes Square. We go down Buchanan street, which along with Argyle Street, is the main shopping street where its Victorian buildings stand out. When we get to the corner with Royal Bank Pl. We find one of the famous old blue police cabins.

A few meters away, on the Royal Exchange Square, we find the Gallery of Modern Art building, in front of which we find an icon of the city, the equestrian statue of Wellington, with a cone on its head. A little further on we enter George Square, the main square of the city. The east side of the square is dominated by the majestic Glasgow City Hall Building, which opened in 1888. We must leave for the airport, leaving for best occasion the visit of the 12th century St Mungo´s Cathedral, and the Necropolis that lies behind it.

(in 53 km.) Prestwick: We move to the airport to return the rental car and take the return flight.