I was told not to be surprised to find men wearing kilts in Scotland. I saw no kilts. Nor did I see bag pipes or a majority of people having red hair. I did see a guy singing and playing guitar on the sidewalk. But he was singing Bob Dylan songs and I know Dylan is from Minnesota.

Glasgow
Flying into Glasgow from Minneapolis is a long and tiring experience. An overnight flight arrived late morning the next day. We stayed at the Jury Inn in the city center near the Clyde River.

Crystal Palace Pub
While others in our group went out to a fancy restaurant, Mona & I chose to walk the city streets and stroll along the river.
While on our journey we found and entered an unassuming Pub for no particular reason except it had a lot of draft beer choices. The Crystal Palace pub was not an impressive place but it was just convenient.
Or so we thought. On the walls were pictures and stories of its history. Built of an iron frame the pub still bears the buildings original lift system. Although it has not been in service for years the beautiful ornate lattice style door still folds onto itself, and a wheel that directs the elevator to go up or down, is still intact.
The buildings iron and glass construction was inspired by Joseph Paxton's crystal Palace, a huge greenhouse like building, which was the centerpiece of the great exhibition of 1851. This structure was built about 1856. We had a pint of beer and one of the best brick oven pizzas I had had in a long time.

Day 2 in Glasgow

The following morning we walked a couple of blocks to the train station where we traveled west, across country, to the Ary station and then hopped the bus that would take us to the Stena line ferry at Cairinryan Port on the western shores of Scotland. Here we boarded this beautiful vessel which contained restaurants and bars to fill our time during the journey over to Belfast Northern Ireland.