Edinburgh to Glasgow Part 1:

Public transport to Glasgow:

As Americans we felt proud that we knew how to get to Glasgow using public transportation.  When we checked out of the Edinburgh hotel we had them call a cab and take us to the train station.  We had to figure out that the train runs every 15 minutes from Edinburgh to Glasgow then we had to board the train and wait 45 minutes for the train to take us to Glasgow.  Luckily I had some experience taking the train from Albany to NYC over the past 6 years so it was not as hard as it seems.

The train system in Scotland has ample opportunities to get you from one town to the next.  The train we took to Glasgow was only two cars so it ran light. 

Glasgow University: 

We came to Glasgow so Beloved Nancy Davis could attend a Post-Medieval  (1500 - current) Archeology conference.   We stayed in walking distance of the conference.  Nancy wanted to check out the campus to get an idea of where she would need to go the next day.  From our hotel we had to walk through Kelvingrove park up a steep hill to get to the campus.  Once we got to the campus we found a wrought iron gate.  Beloved Nancy was against climbing over the fence so we followed the fence back down the hill to the bottom and found a gate with a do not enter sign.  Obviously this sign was intended for others or cars.  We entered the campus and walked back up the same steep hill this time on the other side of the fence.  We needed to get to the lecture hall but it was on the other side of a different iron fence.  Students must really want to get to class or really like rat mazes.

At the center of campus is this beautiful stone building

Campus court yard

Vaulted ceilings

This isn't really a medieval building just meant to look like one.  The campus was originally in the center of town, but the trains needed the land, so the railroad built the university this impressive campus and took the land they needed.  Still don't know whose idea all the fences were.

I do not know what the features are that make this building appear to have been built between 400 - 1499 instead of it's actual date of 1870, but it is a beautiful campus.

From the campus looking down the hill you can see kelvin grove museum built in 1901.

Kelvin grove Art museum

It was time for us to attend the first conference program.  This program was a tour through the medieval Glasgow Cathedral and a follow up walking tour to look at the post medieval buildings of Glasgow.  We followed a iron gate to the end.  If we ended up at the end of this fence without finding a gate I was prepared to toss Nancy over the fence and climb over.  Beloved Nancy lucked out this time as the gate was open.  Tomorrow when she needed the gate to be open she was not so luckily. 
I was not with her that time so she had to walk around the campus until she found an opening.

Glasgow Cathedral: 

We took the bus downtown to the Glasgow cathedral.  We did not know what bus to take.  At a bus shelter we found three buses that mentioned the street we needed to get to but not where on the street they let off.  The street we were currently on ran east-west.  The cathedral was 10 blocks south.  The first bus we waited for dove past us.  By the time the second bus arrived a new passenger showed us that you need to hail buses as if they were cabs, otherwise they will drive past thinking you are waiting for a different bus.

I am used to the grid system of buses.  You get on an east/west bus and it takes you east/west.  If you need to go north/south you transfer to a north/south bus.  The buses in Glasgow take the "we know where you want to go" approach.  The bus started east then went south a bit, then east some more, then south again, then east, then north, then east.  No one except for us was confused that the bus did not keep on the same main road.  By the end we were happy because the bus dropped us "where we wanted to go" directly in front of the cathedral and we did not have to walk the 10 blocks south or take a transfer.