Glasgow - getting to know you!

We left our apartment about 10am to head to George Square to meet up for a walking tour of Glasgow. Once again the weather is looking great - blue sky and sunshine and quite mild, although rain is forecast. We met up with our guide Hope and about a dozen or so other travellers from Naples, US, Canada and London. Hope was an excellent guide and provided some history about the city and its beginning. There is definitely a rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh (not unlike the Melbourne Sydney rivalry).

Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement near the Glasgow Cathedral and grew to be the largest seaport in Scotland and from the 18th century trade with North America and West Indies grew and soon trade with the Orient and India followed. Much of the city’s wealth came from trading ( tobacco, people and cloth).

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the population and economy of Glasgow and the surrounding regions expanded rapidly to become one of the world’s centres of chemicals, textiles and engineering, most notably in the ship building and marine engineering industries.

The coat of arms of the city of Glasgow incorporates a number of symbols and emblems associated with the life of Glasgow’s patron saint, Mungo. The emblems represent “miracles” supposedly performed by Mungo. There is a little poem that explains the emblems: the bird that never flew, the tree that never grew, the bell that never rang, the fish that never swam.

We saw George Square and the many buildings surrounding the square and heard some of the history associated with them, the City Council Chambers, Glasgow Cathedral, The Royal Infirmary, the Glasgow Necropolis and the Gallery of Modern Art, including the statue of Wellington that has a traffic cone on his head, in fact a number of statues have these adornments and as quickly as the City Council remove them, they are back the next day. According to Hope, the Glaswegians find this humorous and so after a few drinks at the pub they make sure the traffic cone is placed back on the statue.

We also heard about Teneu, mother of Saint Mungo, the patron Saint of Glasgow. She was a princess and she was attacked by a young man and fell pregnant. Her father King Lleuddun blamed Teneu and ordered she be killed by being thrown off a cliff. She survived the fall as did the baby. She was then set adrift in a boat but was rescued by monks who took her in and in this community she gave birth to Mungo and lived out the rest of her life. There is a wonderful piece of art that portrays this story which was done by Smug (aka Sam Bates) an Australian contemporary street-artist who has lived in Glasgow for the past 20 years. He portrays Teneu in modern dress as the issue of sexual assault and victim blaming is still a real issue in this day and age. We also got to see another painting Smug has done of Saint Mungo. Both are just brilliant and show what a talented artist he is. His murals are photo-realistic and are done completely freehand, using aerosol cans alone and he completes these huge murals in a week or two.Read more