Adventurous Maite: 2-Scotland: 9th May 2017

9th May 2017 (Tuesday)

A pedestrian crossing control box. The Pelican pedestrian crossing is the most easily recognizable pedestrian crossing of all. It was the first pedestrian crossing to be controlled by traffic lights. When a pedestrian walks up to a pelican crossing and presses the button they have to waitCross3 for the green man to show before crossing the road. There is a continuous bleeping sound at a pelican type pedestrian crossing controlled by traffic lights for the benefit of the blind or partially sighted

In the early hours of the morning... looking for a supermarket to buy food...

Beautiful cat from a window watching the street

Radnor Street

Granville Street

My healthy diet 😋😋😋😋

Having lunch in our hotel room

After the lunch break we went for a stroll in the city

Mitchell Library, a magnificent historic building located in North Street

This is one of Europe’s largest and picturesque public libraries, the category B-listed Mitchell Library has served as a hub for Glasgow’s learning since it opened in 1911, and is now host to over one million books and sources of knowledge...

Construction began five years earlier in 1906, following an architectural design competition that was eventually won by Glasgow architect William Brown Whitie. However, despite Whitie’s Edwardian baroque design falling outside the Victorian Era, the library is connected to the old St. Andrew’s Halls that date back to 1877, although they are now known as the Mitchell Theatre. Coincidentally, this was the same year the original library formed

The library was built at the behest of tobacco merchant Stephen Mitchell, whose company, Stephen Mitchell & Son, would later merge with several others to form the Imperial Tobacco Company. Upon his death in 1874, Mitchell left most of his estate to the council with the expressed wishes of forming a grand public library. This was initially succeeded through a temporary building on Ingram Street in 1877, but its vast collection of both books and readers outgrew the tight confines of the city centre. This was compounded when Scottish traveller Robert Jeffrey donated his vast collection to the library upon his death in 1902. When the new building was finally constructed, it included the Jeffrey Reference Library, which consisted of all his gifts

The Mitchell Library has undergone several changes since it opened over a century ago. The biggest was when the adjacent St. Andrew’s Halls was gutted by a fire in 1962. After much debate, the library was allowed to expand, with Sir Frank Mears & Partners designing the extension work, which was completed almost twenty years later in 1981. A previous extension was started in 1936 to provide a Magazine Room, although it had been suspended during World War II, and was only completed in 1963. The building has also moved with the times, transforming the Main Reading Hall into an exhibition space in 2005. Electronic information was pushed into focus; in 2006 the library started lending music for the first time, with further developments in 2007 and 2008 providing a range of computers and other hi-tech resources to the public

Scottish wedding dresses in the window of a shop

Looking east along St. Vincent Street towards the city centre from North Street.
The M8 Motorway is behind us, down below the street level

George V Bridge (sometimes referred to as King George V Bridge), a three-arched road bridge over the River Clyde in the city centre. Despite its appearance as a masonry bridge, the bridge is actually built of reinforced concrete box girders, faced with Dalbeattie granite

The River Clyde, a river, that flows into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. It's the eighth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the second-longest in Scotland

Journey time signs

Tradeston Footbridge, a pedestrian bridge known as the squiggly bridge... It links the districts of Anderston (on the north bank) to Tradeston (on the south bank) - the aim of the bridge being to aid the regeneration of Tradeston by giving it a direct link to the city's financial district on the western side of the city centre

Crossing the Tradeston Bridge. This bridge is used by pedestrians and cyclists with no motorised traffic being allowed upon it. The span is horizontally curved in an S shape with outward canting on both curves

These flats on the south bank of the river are at Windmillcroft Quay. In the summer of 2014 part of the quay wall collapsed... We can see where it had collapsed in the photo

Kingston Bridge

This bridge is officially known as The Clyde Arc, but known locally as The Squinty Bridge (background of the picture). This walkway is called Lancefield Quay flats and is located on the north bank of the River Clyde

Memorial plaque commemorating the Cheapside Street fire in Glasgow.

Tribute to those who lost their lives in the fire. Located beside the Kingston Bridge

Fireman mosaic created by schoolchildren to commemorate

the 50th Anniversary of the Cheapside Street fire

Kingston Bridge, the largest urban bridge in the UK, it carries the M8 motorway through the city centre. The Kingston Bridge is also one of the busiest road bridges in Europe, carrying around 150.000 vehicles every day

Kingston Bridge plaque commemorating the opening by

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother on 26 June 1970 in Glasgow

Glasgow Bridge, also locally known as Jamaica Street Bridge

La Pasionaria (The Passion Flower)

On the north bank of the River Clyde next to Glasgow Bridge, opposite the Custom House on Clyde Street we found finally this small yet poignant statue upon a 9ft plinth iconifies our Dolores Ibarruri, who was dubbed “La Pasionaria” (the Passionate Flower) because of her leadership to the Republican and Communist movements during the Spanish Civil War

The statue pays tribute to those killed in that conflict, 65 from Glasgow. While it stands as a symbol of the fight against fascism, its own history shows that these problems still existed within this country, decades later. Commissioned by the International Brigade Association in 1974, the artist, Liverpool sculptor Arthur Dooley was paid by funds secured from the Trade Unions and the Labour movement. This caused the Glasgow Conservative Councillors to childishly protest, denouncing the statue and threatening to tear it down when they unseated Labour in the Glasgow Election (something that has never happened, probably due to elitist and threatening behaviour such as this). Their bullying meant that the statue was erected without ceremony, for fear of any incident. The controversy also meant the project was underfunded, and the artist, Dooley, was forced to live destitute in his workshop during this time

The city of Glasgow and the British Labour Movement pay tribute to the courage of those men and women who went to Spain to fight Fascism (1936-1939). 2.100 volunteers went from Britain. 534 were killed. 65 of whom came from Glasgow

Pictures with our fav monument in the city

Proud to be a communist. Right fist raised, a part of communist symbolism

The Glasgow Bridge spans the River Clyde in Glasgow linking the city centre to Laurieston, Tradeston and Gorbals. It is at the bottom of Jamaica Street, near Central Station, and is colloquially known as the Jamaica Bridge

Clyde walkway, Clyde Street and the South Portland suspension bridge

The South Portland Street Suspension Bridge is a suspension-type footbridge across the River Clyde linking the City Centre on the north side to the Laurieston and Gorbals districts on the south side. It was built between 1851 and 1853, replacing a temporary wooden bridge on the same site (used from 1832 to 1846). Its structure was modified in 1871 and it has been refurbished on several further occasions

The bridge is so named due to being the continuation of South Portland Street in Laurieston; however it is perpendicular to the better-known Carlton Place and so is sometimes known as Carlton Place Bridge or simply Glasgow Suspension Bridge although there is another bridge of this type upstream nearby

A great place to relax, unwind and restore your energy...

Howard Street

On the corner of Glassford Street and Trongate

Celtic Football Club shop in Argyle Street

St Andrews Metropolitan Cathedral, a Roman Catholic Cathedral in the city centre of Glasgow, It's the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow. The Cathedral, which was designed in 1814 by James Gillespie Graham in the Neo Gothic style, lies on the north bank of the River Clyde in Clyde Street. St Andrew's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Glasgow, currently the Most Reverend Philip Tartaglia. It's dedicated to the patron saint of Scotland, Saint Andrew

The Tron Church. Close to Kelvingrove Park and the University of Glasgow, the building is the former home of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. 73 Claremont Street