Wednesday walk - around Shawlands in Glasgow

We went to visit family in Glasgow at the weekend, and went out with them for a lovely walk around the area of town they stay in on Saturday afternoon.

Glasgow is the biggest city in Scotland and is divided North and South by the River Clyde, which runs right through it roughly from East to West. My nephew, who we were visiting, lives on the southside in an area called Shawlands.

Its a fairly lively party of town, considering its not near the city centre, and has a lot going on. Above is Langside Hall, which is a community hall that serves the area. Its situated near my nephews apartment in the corner of Queen's Park, which was the start of our walk.

Queens Park is a decent size and has quite a lot to it (ponds, etc). It was quite a nice day when we went there on Saturday and a quite a few people were out enjoying the weather.

We took an easy stroll through the park, passing the duck pond on the way.

The above building is actually now an apartment block, situated in the park. I was impressed with the entrance, when we walked by it - quite grand !

We exited the park at the far corner through this lovely set of gates. I guess the park dates from around the Victorian era, and these gates are a good indicator of that.

From the park we made our way via an ice cream shop (which I stupidly forgot to take a pic off) and then down the very typical Glasgow Street (above). These buildings are called tenements, and they are basically apartment buildings. You can find these all over Glasgow and Edinburgh.

This street curves around at the end which was quite nice, and not that typical for the area. My nephew was pointing out that these buildings were all sand-blasted a few decades ago to clean them up, expect for the one on the right of the picture, which was pretty black ! It was quite weird to see, as every other one was clean - except this one block - odd !

At the end of the street was Queen's Park Govanhill Church, which is protestant Church of Scotland (which is a common denomination in Scotland) - quite a pretty building.

But as you then turn the corner and get to the other end of the block, you then hit another church (above - I think it was a baptist church).

Then next door to it is the dis-used synagogue above !

Then across the road from both of those is this stunning romanesque/byzantine style dis-used church (above - now being used for something else).

And then walking back round towards the Park, you then pass the Queen's Park Baptist Church (above). So that was 4 churches and one synagogue basically all within one city block of each other - and very close together ! There must have been a lot of people with faith in these parts at some point !

Then walking back to their apartment we passed this stunning piece of street art, which was just there on the wall up a side-alley - quite impressive.

The pic above shows the opposite wall in the same alleyway - also quite interesting !

And then the pic above was the last part of our walk showing the main street close to their apartment. The Shed is actually an infamous Glasgow night club ! It always makes me chuckle when I see the sign for it there ! I guess many fun filled, and not-so fun filled nights out have happened in that place !

Not related to the walk, but I thought I'd also share this - its two coasters from my nephews flat - aint they cool !

And then, the next morning, we all made our way to a computerised golf range (top golf - which I've posted about before) and had a nice morning playing golf games.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and we loved our walk around Shawlands on the Saturday afternoon !