Another 48 Hours in Glasgow

We love Glasgow

We fell in love with Glasgow during our first 48 hours there so we opted to return for another 48 hours in Glasgow after our road trip, instead of heading to Edinburgh, as previously planned.

After dropping off the car we headed to the citizenM hotel. If you haven’t heard of the citizenM, it’s well worth checking them out. The hotel is hip and young feeling with a lot of art and design features. A large space to hang out near the lobby and snacks and drinks available 24 hours a day. The second floor offers a café style restaurant with great coffees and eats.

citizenM

Check in was quick with citizenM’s self check in, simply punch in your name, your room key doubles as a luggage tag once you check out. A short elevator ride up to our floor meant we had plenty of time to freshen up before heading out to grab a bite to eat. The rooms are space-aged with a fluffy XL sized bed jammed into the far end of the room and a large tv at the foot. Hopefully you don’t need a buffer for your morning ablutions, the bathroom is a frosted pod shape to one side of the room and offers little to no privacy, but the fact that you can change the lighting colour to match your mood is pretty cool.
As a matter of fact, you can control everything in the room from the tablet next to the bed. Change the lighting from red to blue to green, turn the lights on or off, change the channel on the tv and shut the blinds when you’re ready to go to sleep. With free movies all the time, it would be easy to stay in bed all day, but we were hungry and looking forward to another dinner at The Butterfly and the Pig.

The Butterfly and the pig

This time I had haddock in a butter sauce with mashed potatoes and a poached egg. The piece of fish was huge and as delicious as expected, the potatoes creamy and the egg just right.
Tim had a burger, they say you can judge a restaurant by how clean their bathrooms are, we agree, but also believe you can judge a restaurant by their burger and this one was properly cooked, a little pink in the middle, served with seasoned thick cut fries. Add a few beers into the mix and another great evening was had. The weather was chilly and wet, but we needed to walk off some of those delectable calories and took the long way back to the hotel, walking down Buchanan Street for an added few blocks. The next morning, with the sunshine rising in a blue sky, we walked to Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. All museums in Glasgow are free, which we thought would be a great perk in any city.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum has something for everyone and we wished we had saved more time to spend exploring it. The entryway is a huge two storey area that used to house large marble sculptures. The statues have gone but the central hall is still majestic with a huge pipe organ as its crown jewel.  The museum was designed so that you can hear its music no matter where you are situated within the building.
The museum offers 22 themed galleries off of the main entryway, with Scottish, French and Dutch art and much more. One of our favourites was Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. 

Dumpling Monkey

Heading towards the West End we were a bit peckish and noticed an Asian restaurant called Dumpling Monkey, being huge fans of dumplings and wanting to fend off any hunger induced anger, we decided to give it a try. We were happy we did, their dumplings were meaty, with a crispy bottom and just enough chewiness to the wrapper. Our only regret was that we didn’t have time to order another helping.

George Mewes Cheese Shop

Continuing on our way, we nipped into George Mewes Cheese Shop to pick up a few cheesy snacks for later on. We had a long chat with George’s colleague who schooled us on a few different cheeses and of course, offered samples.
Back at the hotel we cozied up in bed and had a rest while watching tv and researching a good place to have dinner.

Charcoals

Since Glasgow is the UK’s curry capital, we decided an Indian restaurant was in order and after reading several stellar reviews we headed over to Charcoals on Renfeild Street. Even though we didn’t have a reservation they were able to fit us in at a comfortable table near the front. The place was hopping and filled with locals. We were happy with our decision. We told the owner we wanted a few of their best dishes. Soon after, a server came back with chicken biryani, palak paneer and rogan josh, three of our favourite Indian dishes and all were as amazingly delicious as the next.

Full and tired we headed back to the citizenM and our XL bed for a restful sleep.

Hop On/Hop Off

We spent the last day of our Scottish adventure and also of our multi-month European escapade, on a Hop on/Hop Off tour (approx. £15 pp for 2 day ticket). We’ve always enjoyed this type of tour, it allows you to see a lot of the city in a short time. Optimally, we would do it on our first day and then visit some of the spots we saw during the tour, but it happened that we couldn’t fit it in until the last day.

We enjoyed seeing Glasgow on this very-touristy tour and learning about its history in shipping and how it became one of the UK’s finest cultural and culinary inclined cities.

We love Glasgow so much, we can’t wait to return.