Scotland Holiday - Day 3

There was indeed sunshine on Leith but it did not survive our visit to The Royal Yacht Britannia. The rain when it came was torrential and the worst we have had on this holiday. It was too late to spoil an excellent day which made me tired and happy in equal measure. I ended up with a huge number of photographs and, consequently, a huge task to name them and, where relevant, to upload them.

The Heart of Scotland services on the M8 leaves a lot to be desired in many ways but its Wild Bean Cafe served adequate food and I noted the availability of free Wi-Fi which we did not use. It was there too that I once again received a favourable impression of Scottish service and could not help feeling in the back of my mind that it would not be so warm in many places down south. The Wild Bean girl was very helpful in pointing out a beakfast special offer which reduced my bill. On my first night the ticket office man at Glasgow Central photocopied the Roundabout map for me - I don't think information services extend that far where I live. Only this morning, our concierge was extremely helpful (pivotal as it turned out in the success of my day) in providing directions to a subway station. Later, in our Edinburgh hotel a coach driver offered to move his vehicle to get me a better photograph. All these actions I have recorded were sincere and their warmth leaves a lasting impression.


Armed only with a small illustrated article in the August edition of Buses magazine, I set out to find two murals (of buses). Instinct and the limited information in the article told me that they would be near Kelvinbridge subway station but to cover my bets I went first to another West End location on the River Kelvin. It proved almost to be a convincing red herring being outside the now closed Transport Museum but consultation with some local walkers pointed me at the Kelvinbridge location of my original surmise. I entered Kelvingrove Park uncertain of where exactly to look but was soon overwhelmed by the scale of what I found. Far beyond the two bus images were a vast series of beautifully executed murals covering a wide array of modes of transport. The quality of the art by street artist Sam Bates is stunning and appears in full at my Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/. In some images motorcycles appear to leap from the local greenery; others recall bygone eras in a highly evocative fashion. I just kept on clicking - thank goodness for digital and no need to change films.
I left Glasgow very happy indeed and the subdued weather yielded to some decent sunshine. This enhanced to the fullest effect Water of Leith which is one of the most beautiful stretches of water I have seen. We saw it first in the environs of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art where we had parked to begin our pursuit of the six figures in Antony Gormley's '6 Times'. Figure one, partially buried, is easy to find and the second in a setting of impossible beauty below and behind the gallery. The venue held us for a while longer for an outstanding lunch and the Gilbert & George in Room 20. The hunger and thirst satisfied in the Gallery Cafe were very different from those in the works of the artists. I had the vegetarian dish which was just excellent and Greg enjoyed his soup of fennel and sweet potato.


It was evidently going to be physically demanding to pursue the figures in Gormley's work but number three did not elude us. It was a different story though at the ostensible site of figure 4 besides St Mark's Park. Our puzzlement at its apparent absence was dispelled by a local who revealed that the figure was submerged due in part to a design fault in its base. We returned to its location and could barely discern its form but no meaningful photograph could be taken. We learned that figure 5 is similarly submerged and decided to proceed directly to Leith Docks.

Our timing allowed us to photograph the melancholic figure 6 and visit the Royal Yacht Britannia. The sunshine was now struggling and furious skies formed the background to my pictures at the visitor centre. The historic ship is extremely interesting and beautifully presented but during our tea break in the elegant Royal Deck Tea Room the rain set in so heavily as to cause us to discontinue our visit in favour of a return at a later date.











In the evening a 40 minute wait at Toby seemed unreasonable so we walked a little further to the rather low-key St John's Curry Club at 100 St John's Road, Corstorphine, Edinburgh. The food was very good but served slowly and inaccurately. Poppadums did not arrive and Greg's main course was completely different to what he had ordered. The rain continued and I returned to my laptop.