Other recommendations from the Glasgow trip.
Food: Bouzy Rouge seafood and grill, home of a huge and excellent Chateaubriand. Antipasti – a friendly and easygoing Italian, with a branch on Sauchiehall Street and one (the one we visited) on Byres Road in the cool West End.
Theatre: Glasgow Rep‘s production of Twelfth Night in the Botanical Gardens – lots of walking around following the actors, very involving and a good production.
To Glasgow for our anniversary, and a few spectacular discoveries. Apart from Glasgow itself – trendy, good restaurants, good architecture – we visited a couple of fantastic galleries.
The Burrell Collection, out in Pollok Country Park, was a real discovery. It’s a great little collection of paintings, sculpture and artefacts from 1st Dynasty Egypt through to a good little collection of Degas. It also has a good selection of Lucas Cranach the Elder.
At the Hunterian Art Gallery, by the University, we saw the reconstructed Mackintosh house, but best of all discovered the Scottish Colourists – the name for several artists including John Duncan Fergusson who, from their origins in Scotland, worked around Europe in the pre-WWII years. Amazing, rich colours and thick, tactile paint – very memorable. A book about them is linked in the sidebar.
The NAO reports on the condition of Britain’s railway stations. Things are getting better, but travellers don’t like smaller, unmanned stations. I can’t say I blame them, at least in some inner city areas.
Bekynton Brasserie, Wells – just by the Cathedral. Good sandwiches, not so sure about the hot food – spag bol looked microwaved. Try the fudge shop on the corner nearby.
Chives deli on Swain Street in Watchet – one of the best cream teas I’ve had in a long while, and opportunity to drool over cheeses, salamis and chocolates. Also, extremely reasonably priced. Almost worth moving to Watchet for.
Spent today, very enjoyably, at the West Somerset Railway. An excellent preserved railway, but with Minehead, Dunster, Watchet and Washford at the top end, why in God’s name did they close the branch?
I was in Brighton the other weekend, househunting with the family. We decided to stay a couple of nights as a treat (the move to Amersham had just fallen through), and also to give us a couple of evenings out on the town.
We stayed at the very pleasant New Steine Hotel, on the New Steine, along St. James’s Street towards Kemp Town. Very friendly staff and good, clean rooms for a reasonable rate, though the bed wasn’t of the most comfortable, and there was no lift. Can’t recommend the restaurant, though – a French bistro that delivered a medium-rare steak with no pinkness: for shame!
The last night there my sister baby-sat, and we went out for a meal with two friends to the Coach House on Middle Street. Great food and friendly service – highly recommended. Good as a bar, too, with some tables for drinking out front and a small bar area.
What if all the Tubes were south of the river instead?
Jonathan Crowe over at the Map Room covers the second volume in an atlas of the 1946 US railway network, which sounds fascinating – if depressing in the light of Amtrak’s current woes.
For a similar view of Britain’s railways, past and present, you could try:
(for the situation pre-grouping, in 1926); or
for the position today.