Sidetracked

We visited Glasgow in 2010, but the purpose of that visit was to ride the West Highland Line, so we did not get to see much of the city. We did walk from our downtown hotel near Sauchiehall Street to find a well-known Scottish restaurant, Stravaigin, in the Kelvingrove neighborhood. When we decided to go to Glasgow in 2018, we decided to stay in that area. It’s a lively place, with lots of shops and places to eat along the main thoroughfares of Great Western Road and Byres Road. The area also features footpaths along the River Kelvin, the University of Glasgow, and the Glasgow Botanical Gardens. It is not far from the center of Glasgow, and you can get downtown very quickly on the city’s compact subway system, the SPT (Strathclyde Public Transport) Subway, which is locally known as “A Clockwork Orange” for the SPT’s orange branding and because the system is a single line which runs in a circuit around central Glasgow.

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Exploring GlasgowRead More

I had been to Manchester when I was about 20, but I didn’t remember much about it. All I can say is that the area has definitely changed, and a building boom in Manchester, started, in part, by the IRA bombing of 1996, but accelerating through 2018, where condo-style high-rise buildings seem to be going up everywhere. We spent three nights in Manchester, and I found the city much more walkable and interesting than I expected. A lot of our time was spent in the Ancoats and Northern Quarter areas, with much of the first full day was spent visiting some family near Wigan.

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Abraham Lincoln, Pizza, and Other Hidden Gems on the Streets of ManchesterRead More