Thursday, I wanted to go see Venus Rising. It was at the Burrell Collection, in the Glasgow suburbs. To get there I needed to take a bus. The problem was to find out where to catch the bus. So, I decided to go to the central bus Station, Buchanan. To do this I caught a bus on Argyle St and told the bus driver I wanted to go to Buchanan.

Since I wasn’t familiar with the street layout it took me a while to realize that I had traveled farther than I thought appropriate and asked the bus driver where Buchanan was. Turns out I should have gotten off many blocks back, so I got off and walked back. I actually had a downtown Glasgow street map with me, so I had an idea where I was going. After I found the TARDIS, I got there. And got into the wrong information line, the one that wasn’t moving. So I left the line for lunch, got caught unawares by an Asian Bagpipe Band and returned, this time in the right line.

I found out that I had to go to the Central station to catch one of three buses that would take me to the Burrell Collection. Eventually, I found the stop and this time I asked the driver to tell me where to get off. And so we wandered through the Streets of Glasgow looking for the Burrell Collection, not seeing any wooden houses along the way. I think I may have nodded off because a lady was prodding me saying the driver was at my stop.

I alighted from the bus, crossed a busy street and entered Pollok Country Park. It was a shady tree-lined lane that faded into the distance. I started walking down the lane. And walking and walking. After thinking I was about back to the SECC, I saw a sign to the collection and it was just around the corner.

Quite an impressive museum. I got in on one of the guided tours and learned that Burrell liked to collect things. He had a collection of Grecian artifacts, a collection of Roman artifacts, a collection of medieval doorways, a collection of Chinese pottery, a collection of tapestries, a collection of armor, a collection of Whistler, a collection of Renaissance art, a collection of stained glass windows, etc. The man just liked to collect things.

He was a contemporary of Hearst and was often competing for the same artifacts as Hearst. Since Burrell wouldn’t pay more than what he thought was a fair price, Hearst often won the bidding wars. Burrell picked up Hearst’s pieces pretty cheap after Hearst had to liquidate his collections.

Eventually, he willed his collections to Glasgow if they built the right display for them. And the building is magnificent in its own way. The glass walls are right up against the woods on one side. The main floor had most of the collections in rooms with very high ceilings, so high that the second floor balconies overlook the displays. The second floor is where the paintings were collected. It was impressive to look down on the tapestries and the furniture and the other large art works below and get another perspective of them.

Finally, at the end of the tour, we ended up in the “Venus Rising” display. “Venus Rising” is by Titian and is the picture of Venus coming from the sea and wringing her hair. They had collected several other art works from other artists, like Picasso and Degas, that followed a similar theme. Together the pieces were touring the Scottish Museums and they were at the Burrell at this time. A very small, but very impressive show. I thank Ann for mentioning it.

I left the Burrell and thought to look in on the other part of the park, the Pollok House. Unfortunately, it was nearing closing time by the time I got there, I missed the last murder and so decided to walk back to the bus. I discovered at this point that there was a courtesy bus that ran between the front gate, the Collection and the House but it had stopped by this time. I did wander briefly into the Pollok House Gardens and they were incredible. Such structure and organization, such variety; I really wished I had gotten there earlier and had the chance to explore in more detail.

I walked back, past the Highland cattle, down the tree shaded lane and got on a double-decker bus back into the city. For Dinner I went to a nice Thai restaurant around the corner from my lodgings and then went across the street to a bar that had live music coming in as part of the Bagpipe Festival. I thought it was a strange time to have a bagpipe festival, with the Tattoo going on in Edinburgh, but they had it anyway. The music at the pub was non-bagpipe acoustic music.

Then it was off to bed to prepare for the trip home.