Thursday 10 February 2000
Highlights: City Chambers, Stirling’s Library, Glasgow Cathedral, St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art, People’s Palace

Had a very interrupted night’s sleep as one of our room mates was sick and coughing all night.  The dorm beds were also very hard.

Anyway we started the day with a visit to the City Chambers.  Impressive is a massive understatement.  The chambers were built in 1880 for a cost exceeding 500,000 ponds and is most likely the world’s grandest council chambers.  Hard to believe any government would have enough money to build something like this.  Material was bought in from around the world including Italy and Australia.  The great hall is magnificent. I’m hoping the photos do it justice.

The council chamber itself holds 79 members / councillors and is at least on par with the New Zealand Federal Parliament building we saw earlier in the trip and better than the Victorian State Parliament.   The tour guide allowed us to sit in the head chairand take photos, Mayor for a Day!  Most of the building was funded by wealthy tobacco company owners, not public money which explains the grand scale.

Unfortunately it was raining when we left the City Chambers.  We headed for Stirling’s Library, now the Museum for Modern Art.  This building used to be a house which is very hard to understand because it is so grand it’s hard to imagine any one person owning and living here.

The Glasgow Cathedral was interesting especially the lower or underground churches.  The Cathedral was built on the tomb of St Mungo.  A real bonus was the central heating, after the rain it got both me and Jon warmed up and drier, God did provide!

Across from the Cathedral was St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art.  This museum tries to represent all religious beliefs in the hope of us better understanding each other which is a noble aim.

The final museum was the People’s Palace that concentrates on Glasgow’s past, especially working class conditions covering socialisms ideals to past problems.