We stayed at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow. It has indeed been grand in its day and a fairly recent refurbishment has restored much of that. It is quite literally at Glasgow's Central Station and even has a dedicated entrance directly from the concourse but we missed that and we went out into the street to battle the cigarette and vape smokers then came back in the main entrance.
I know it's an addiction, and both of my parents were well in its terminal grip, but I've never understood smoking so this new vape business is completely perplexing. They puff about the streets like an unholy fusion of a steam train and a bushfire with complete and utter disregard for all others which is what most smokers do anyway.
But Glasgow streets aren't the same battle as London and Edinburgh. There are less people and just a fraction of the tourists so people tend to be less self-obsessed and even appear somewhat more cognisant of what's around them.
First stop was the Willow Tea Rooms which are a faithful reconstruction of the original by John Rennie Mackintosh. I must admit I knew nothing of him before Lin opened my eyes to his wonderful legacy last visit and now he is part of my Holy Architectural Trinity Plus One. If John Rennie Mackintosh, Walter Burley Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright were sat at a table (as they say here) they would have far more in common than just their triple-barrel names.
Griffin and his wife Marion Mahoney were students of FLW and part of the Taliesin School so the connection between their styles and that of Wright is both obvious and unavoidable. I need to investigate further to see what, if any, connection existed between Mackintosh and Wright.
Both Mackintosh and Griffin had wives who deserve much greater recognition for their role as architects, draftsmen and designers which is exactly what Marion Mahoney was in her own right, hence my Holy Architectural Trinity Plus One. Margaret Macdonald was also an accomplished artist and designer who, like Marion, worked hand in hand with her husband to document, furnish and decorate their extraordinary creations. Frank Lloyd Wright, on the other hand, was a womanising bastard.
Glasgow Tucker Tip #1
By the time we'd walked across the Clyde and back then around the downtown we were too tired to think about going out to dinner so decided to settle on some F&Cs and a deep-fried battered Mars Bar from the Blue Lagoon chippy since the Justin Bieber Deep-Fried Battered Haggis Supper was never gonna happen. Now I know exactly what you're thinking - deep-fried battered Mars Bar, gross! But it's not, in fact it's damned good and contains all three basic food - sugar, fat and salt!
Next day saw us at the also recreated Mackintosh House at the University if Glasgow. It was recreated because the original, about 100 metres away was slowly sinking due to mine subsidence. A way of remediating the same problem was found for an entire neighbourhood in Bath but Glasgow decided upon what I like to call the Masterton Homes Solution instead - the Knock Down Rebuild Package.
Leaving town on Day 3 we headed to Hill House in Helensburgh just west of Glasgow which is both Charles and Margaret, inside and out and contains some of their finest work. That was a treat and then some, especially the shower in the main bathroom which has ring upon ring of semi-circular jets that make it look like a cross between a decontamination unit and something terribly nasty from Metropolis.
Glasgow left us both wanting more which is a lovely way to leave a place.
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