50th Birthday Trip part 3 – Glasgow and Gleneagles

Part 1 link and Part 2 link

Friday 3rd June – I was an hour late leaving Susan’s to head to Glasgow, but the traffic wasn’t too bad so my husband, who had caught the train down to meet me, didn’t have to wait too long. He went to the pub so it wasn’t a hardship waiting the hour for me 😉

We checked into the Crowne Plaza which is right next to the River Clyde and is next door to the Ovo Hydro Arena which is where we were seeing Queen with Adam Lambert that evening. We had some drinks in the bar at the hotel and didn’t realise that getting dinner there was going to be an issue. When we were hungry we were told they didn’t have a table until 8pm, which was no use as that was when the concert was starting! So we had a bag of crisps each and the biscuits from our bedroom tea tray!

The concert was amazing. We were standing and had a really good spot and I managed to see Brian May, Roger Taylor and Adam Lambert for the majority of each song and when they spent some time playing at the end of the runway section they were only 5 people away from me. There was a very moving section where Brian May played acoustic guitar and sang “Love of My Life” duet with Freddie Mercury (on the video screen). On the big screen it made it look like they were touching hands, it was incredibly moving and I had a lot of tears flowing. Adam was brilliant though, he wore a sparkly kilt for part of the evening. He doesn’t imitate Freddie but sings the songs in his own style and has fantastic range and character to make the songs his own, whilst also keeping them Queen songs. I took lots of photos so here’s just a few.

Saturday 4th – We had our breakfast at the hotel and walked along the river and had a little wander around the Glasgow Science Centre’s outside area which has some things for you to play with (for free) and then we walked down to the Riverside Museum, which is a transport museum. They had a whole bunch of different vehicles in there and I took some steam train footage for my friend’s son who is into trains. They had Ewan McGregor’s BMW bikes from his Long Way Round and Long Way Down trips, so that was exciting…they were huge motorbikes.

They also had a Hillman Imp, which was a car that my mum used to own. I couldn’t believe how small the car was!

We then walked back to the hotel and then headed to Golf Fang to play mini golf. It is a pretty cool place and the holes are all very different themes, with The Shining, a Laundrette, Breaking Bad being a few of the hole themes. I won, this is unheard of!! I usually always lose at mini golf. They serve drinks whilst you play and I had some mocktails, given it was early in the day. The walls and ceiling were covered in street art…see the Joker done with spray cans…amazing.

After golf we headed to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which I thought we hadn’t been to before. However, on seeing that Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John on the Cross painting was there we realised we had been there before. But we had a nice soup and sandwich and kept out of the heat of the mid-day sun. Yep it was a warm day!!

We then walked back into town and had an ice cream and then met my friend Steph and her boyfriend for a Mexican meal at Topolabamba. Oof it was spicy! I enjoyed the frozen lime margarita’s. This is traditional Mexican street food, I must admit I probably prefer the less spicy TexMex style places, as I don’t handle spicy very well.

When we got back to our hotel we managed to catch the end of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert on TV. I walked 26k steps and had a big blister on the sole of my left foot! Ouch!

Sunday 5th – We had breakfast in the hotel and then checked out. We stopped at Braehead shopping centre for me to buy a new pair of shoes with memory foam liner for my sore feet. After picking up a few things I drove us north to the Gleneagles Hotel where we were booked to have a Beatrix Potter themed afternoon tea in their Glendevon Room. It was very special and a beautiful setting. Many famous people have stayed at the hotel and the G8 summit leaders ate in the same room in 2005. The hotel is very fancy and it was a real treat and I was a little worried it would be tiny portions, but in fact we ended up both leaving with a wee box containing 4 cakes each that we couldn’t finish. My husband had let them know I was pescatarian and they’d made some delicious sandwiches. This was also the first time I’ve ever tried crab, which was on a tiny crumpet with crème fraiche.

We had a wander around the gardens and they have an amazing selection of outdoor games to play, from croquet, boules, giant connect 4, pitch & putt, a cut flower garden, lots of deck chairs and outside eating. I assume it costs a fortune to stay there but it certainly had impressive facilities and atmosphere.

We then headed to Loch Lomond area, to our glamping pod. This will be in my final 50th celebrations post tomorrow.