Kelvingrove Park to the Botanic Gardens

Once I got back from Dublin, it was as if Glasgow could tell I had warmed up to it, and in return, it warmed up to me.  Last Thursday was one of the most beautiful, sunny fall days I have ever experienced.  Thus in celebration of this enigma, I took my camera out along one of my favourite running routes in order to show the handful of people that read this blog where I’ve been spending a lot of my time over the last two months.

First up is Kelvingrove Park.

the leaves are past their prime, but at least the sun is shining!

Kelvingrove is one of the very first places I heard about when I arrived in Glasgow.  Looking at the picture above, you might expect that it came up in a conversation about the prettiest places in Glasgow or where one would be advised to spend a romantic afternoon. In reality, however, I first learned of Kelvingrove when I was informed that it holds a high standing on the “Places To Avoid At Nighttime” List.  Apparently, once the sun dips down below the horizon (which is happening earlier and earlier these days), Kelvingrove transforms into a place notorious for drug deals, male prostitution, and stabbings inspired by fierce football team alliances.  I’m sure the Glaswegian imagination has exaggerated a lot of this over the years, but I still avoided the place altogether for the first few weeks.

statue at the entrance to the park

Yet after these couple of weeks of awkwardly skirting the peripheries of the park, I realized that in the daylight, Kelvingrove seems to possess an alter ego.  Instead of syringes and balled fists, it’s mainly couples, leashes, and strollers.  After witnessing a very tender moment between a toddler and a gray squirrel while standing outside the fence, I decided that I too could probably venture past the wrought iron and into the park.  The first thing you see when you walk into the park is a grand statue (picture above) commemorating the Highland Light Brigade, a regiment of the British Army from 1881-1959.  Occasionally, the statue will also be sporting a fluorescent orange traffic cone as a makeshift cap.  I imagine the cone is put on by Kelvingrove's nocturnal hooligans and then taken off again by some respectful citizen of Glasgow.  The cone just keeps coming and going though; nobody ever seems to win.  Anyway, cone or no cone, Kelvingrove is now the place where I do all my best intervals and people watching.  I’ll even occasionally attempt to do spenst up one of the grassy hills or my reading for class on a park bench, but it rains so much here that both these activities usually end in wet and muddy disaster.

the result of attempting to do two-footed
hops up a grassy hill right after it had rained

Then, if you run out of Kelvingrove and turn left, you can follow a shady bike path that winds along the River Kelvin and underneath the bridges of the roads above.  I’ve often seen foxes prancing along the banks and just a few weeks ago I watched a blue heron catch itself a mid-afternoon snack.  There is also a lot of interesting and intricate graffiti speckling the walls of the buildings along the trail.

 I liked this one - for obvious reasons

more artsy-fartsy graffiti 

On one of my walks along this path, I stumbled upon some spray-painted quotes that sounded like song lyrics.  When I looked them up online later that day, I discovered that they were in fact from a song written by a local Glaswegian, Gillian Christie.  I've included a video of the her playing and singing the song if you're interested.  She's quite pleasant.

"You can't ignore the animals in your bones"

"I'll show you the place I've been dreaming of"

And speaking of music, while I was meandering along this same path just last week, I actually heard bagpipes being played from somewhere nearby.  I love bagpipes and they’re not played here as often as I expected them to be (probably because Glasgow is less touristy than most of the rest of Scotland), so I was determined to discover the source.  This decision led me to scrambling up a brambly hillside along the river and crouching in somebody’s backyard, stealthily listening to them practice inside the house. I didn’t think I should trespass for too long though, so I scampered back down and continued on my way, stopping every once in awhile to listen again and try to figure out what they were playing.

the River Kelvin

The trail keeps winding along the River Kelvin until eventually it meets up with the Botanic Gardens, which I included pictures of in my very first blog post.  Kelvingrove and the Botanic Gardens are my two favorite/the only places to run outside without dealing with traffic, so I was thrilled to find out that I could get between them so easily.  It’s not a particularly long route, but it is nice for short runs, afternoon meanders when you need to be alone with your thoughts, and apparently discovering music!

the greenhouse at the Glasgow's Botanic Gardens 

Anyway, the point of this blog post was to just show you a bit more of Glasgow since almost all the other posts are about other places, but this is the one where I actually spend the most time.  More info on Glasgow to come soon!

And as always, more pictures here:

Kelvingrove Park to the Botanic Gardens