Travel Diaries: England & Scotland 2015 (4) - Loch Lomond & Glasgow

And to England as well, but oh well, it’s the Scotland bit I was most excited about 🙂 On our fourth and fifth day, we drove up to Loch Lomond where we took a lovely hike, we got soaked by the pouring rain in Glasgow, slept in an actual ‘Guest House’, visited more of Glasgow and drove down to Bradford!

I’m absolutely not sure whether anybody cares about what we did while on this holiday, but as at least one friend asked, this seemed like an easy way to get it all down at once – one day at a time.

Day 4: 13/09/2015: Loch Lomond – Glasgow

The fourth day started bright and early – and very, very cold. We got up early and drove right to the closest ‘services’, where we bought something warm (those darn frozen limbs again) and some lunch (it was cheap and yummie, of course we bought lunch there 🙂 ). Then, we drove on to Loch Lomond, where we put on our hiking shoes, put our lunches into the backpacks and went on a hike. Now, this is a hike which starts on Loch Lomond East, and it’s supposed to only be 45 minutes – so of course, we changed to another walk halfway through, and ended up enjoying the hills/mountains, the view of the lake, the nature and, most importantly the sun for over 2 hours.

Loch Lomond

Once we got back down, back into the car we went, and drove the last bit to Glasgow. We’d not even decently parked the car, though, when it started pouring – add to that, that apparently our card was a little outdated and the tourist centre seemed to have disappeared (apparently, it actually did disappear, or so we were told by a shopkeeper), and it’s no wonder that we took cover in the shopping street.
In the pound store (sounded rather funny, I’m used to hearing dollar store) I found Reese’s, which I’ve wanted to try ever since I heard Brooklyn and Bailey talk about them, and I ended up buying a whole bunch, because I liked them so much (to the displeasure of my two companions, who think they’re gross – oh well, more for me, I suppose?). We eventually ended up in Waterstones, where I bought way more books than I should have (more on that in my September book haul, probably) and used the internet there to book a room – my shoes were hole-y so my feet (and as such: I) was freezing, and the other two were much looking forward to a night spent in comfort, so we ended up just going straight to the B&B, where we spent the rest of the night in the bliss that comes with having a bed, central heating, and of course: wifi.

Day 5: 14/09/2015: Glasgow – Bradford

The next day we actually got to sleep in, and by the time we got up, we were almost late for breakfast – as we’d gotten it, for free, with the room (a room which we already got at 1/3 of the usual price, I might add), we weren’t about to say no to fruit, a table and, in my bf’s case: Full English Breakfast with lots of coffee.
Once we were done stuffing ourselves, we put our stuff back in the car, went back into the centre of the city (the B&B was right next to the highway – long live good isolation!) and walked up to the city halls. We wanted to join the free tour of the city halls, which departed at 10h30 but due to someone needing a warm breakfast (yes, my bf 🙂 ), we got there 10 minutes late. What we saw from the halls was enough to ensure that we very much would have wanted to join the tour, if only we’d gotten there on time.
We walked on, through the older part of Glasgow (although, as a whole, it seemed as if the older part of Glasgow was way smaller than that of Edinburgh), and then made our way to the cathedral, passing by a lot of university students – that’s when we realized it was probably orientation week or something of the sort – and we even managed to get a couple of free sodas.
The cathedral, although very sober, was definitely worth a visit – it’s one of the few cathedrals still left in the United Kingdom which has not been destroyed during the Reformation, and as such still held some of the older styles and elements.
Soon enough, we were back on our way, towards the car, and started driving southwards. We had to be in London by Wednesday (more on that later) and so as to not overdo it on the amount of driving in one day, we figured we’d get an early start. We booked an Ibis Bugdet in Bradford (such cheap! many bon-marché!), which was about halfway to Oxford, where we were staying on Tuesday night. For anybody who ever has to go to Bradford: definitely go get some food from Mamma’s Pizza’s – it’s so cheap, so delicious, and they have a lot of choice, as well as really quick and friendly service.
Yet again, we went to bed kinda early – but hey, we had a bed, can you blame us?