Glasgow is situated on the River Clyde, in the West Central Lowlands. With its 599 650 inhabitants, it is the largest city of Scotland, and it is a big industrial city.

There are lots of things to see and to visit in Glasgow. So, I am going to present you the main visits to do.

To visit Glasgow, I advise you to do the City Sightseeing Glasgow tour which is a bus that takes you in all the main districts of Glasgow. During the ride, a person tells you the history of Glasgow and its monuments, the translation in French is available. The first bus leaves at 9.30 am and the last bus at 4.30 pm. The price is £12 (if you book online) for 21 stops, you can stop when you want and take another bus after.

Bus City Sightseeing Glasgow

You don’t have time to do all the stops but you can stop at the main places.

First, you can get off at the stop number 2, the Glasgow Cathedral. The entry is free and you can visit the cathedral freely.

Then, you can get off at the stop number 11, SECC. At this stop you can visit the Glasgow Science Centre which contains the Science Mall, a planetarium, Scotland’s biggest-screen IMAX cinema and a Science Show Theatre. The price for the Science Mall is £9, it’s £3 more if you want to visit also the planetarium, and £3.50 more to visit the Glasgow Tower next to the Science Centre.

The Science Centre comprises 3 floors of over 250 science-learning exhibits. It includes interactive exhibits and live laboratory experiences. In the Science Show Theatre there are live science shows with bangs, flashes, flames, crashes and explosions.

The Glasgow Tower is 127 metres high and can rotate at 360 degrees. It is the tallest freely-rotating tower in the world.

After, you can go to the next stop, the Riverside Museum. The Riverside Museum is a museum of transport where you can see old trains, bus, vintage cars, motorbikes and bicycles. You can also walk in an old street of Glasgow with shops dating from 1895 to the 1980’s.

Outside the museum you can visit a sailing ship named the Tall Ship and see how the sailors lived. The entry for the museum and for the boat is free.

Riverside Museum

Riverside Museum

To finish, I advise you to get off at the stop number 16, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The Kelvingrove is a huge museum with a wide range of objects and collections: exhibitions about natural history, arms and armours, paintings, sculptures… The entry for this museum is free too.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Enjoy !

Emilie CAILLETEAU

Inverness is situated in the Scottish Highlands (north of Scotland) and it is along the River Ness. The city is one of the 6 biggest cities in Scotland and it is regarded as the capital of the Highlands.

Inverness is a very beautiful city, you really have to visit it.

To start you can see the Inverness castle which is dominating the city centre. The castle is wholly pink and you can enjoy a beautiful view of the city. Today the castle is a courthouse and is not open to the public.

Inverness Castle

In the city you can also visit the St Andrew’s Cathedral which is also pink and is richly decorated.

Near Inverness, there is the famous Loch Ness. The Loch Ness is the second largest Scottish loch with a surface area at 56 km². To enjoy the beauty of the loch, I advise you to do a boat trip on the loch. During the tour, someone tells you the history and the legends of the loch, and maybe you will be able to see the famous Loch Ness Monster if you are lucky! You can do a trip in the journey or the evening, and you can also choose to do a high speed trip. Trips begin at Fort Augustus situated at the other end of the loch.

Loch Ness

Then, you can also visit the Urquhart Castle and the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition, both situated in Drumnadrochit along the Loch Ness.

Urquhart Castle was built in 1230 on a hill along the Loch. The last of the government troops garrisoned in the castle blew up the castle when they left in 1692. So, now you can visit the Urquhart’s ruins and see the life of the noble residents of the castle at medieval times. And, on the top of the hill you have a beautiful view on the loch. The entry costs £7.90 and the visit lasts around 1 hour.

The Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition was opened over 30 years ago. The museum presents us the history of the Loch Ness from the ice age to the third millennium, so 500 million years of history, natural mystery and legend. The history of the loch is presented in 7 themed rooms via a hi-tech multi-media presentation with animations, lasers and special effects. You can discover the history of the Loch Ness Monster and learn about rumours, hoaxes and truths about it. You can learn about what has been discovered and what research has been done, and see some of the actual equipment used to explore the loch. The entry costs £7.95 and the visit lasts a little more than 1 hour.

I have presented you the main activities to do in Inverness, and I hope it can help you to organize your trip.

Have a good trip!

Emilie CAILLETEAU

In Scotland Halloween is more famous than in France and they have lots of old traditions which I’m going to present you.

First of all, the fancy dress is the most important. In Scotland lots of people disguise themselves, and not only children, teenagers and adults too! So you will probably see spirits, witches, devils or skeletons in the street if you come in Scotland at Halloween.

Then, children go knock on the doors of their neighbours to have some sweets. In the traditions, before to have some sweets, children have to sing, recite a poem or a joke. But now children just knock on the doors and say “trick or treat”.

But Halloween is not only the day where children eat lots of sweets, it’s also a day to have a party!

For the party you have to decorate your home with lots a terrifying things, especially by carving pumpkin lanterns with creepy grimaces.

Then, to animate the party, games are indispensable, and in Scotland they make games especially for Halloween.

– Bobbing for apples: This game involves trying to grab apples floating in water using the mouth and with the hands tied behind the back.

– Treacle scones: In this game, participants have to take a bite out of treacle scones hanging from ropes.

To finish, you have to cook. Necessarily, you have to buy lots of sweets for the Halloween party but it exists other specialities at Halloween, as the sausage rolls. According to the legend, a witchcraft act of 1735 forbidden the consumption of pork pastries on Halloween. This act was repealed in 1950’s and the sausage rolls became popular at Halloween parties.

There are lots of events at Halloween in Scotland, so I’m going to present you some of them.

• Scotland has lots of castle and many of them are apparently haunted. So, at Halloween there are lots of ghost tours to do, for example you can do the Haunted Tour in Glamis Castle or the Original St Andrews witches tour.

• Then, there are two popular festivals in Scotland: the Glasgow horror festival and the Samhuinn fire festival in Edinburgh.

The Glasgow horror festival takes place in the city centre of Glasgow. The festival lasts 12 hours and includes indie film screenings, costume prizes, live music and more.

At the Samhuinn fire festival you will see colourful costumes representing characters from ancient folklore, fire, musical and street theatre shows.

• In Dundee, the biggest Halloween party for students is The Legendary Halloween Party at the nightclub the Union. It’s a busy night so you have to buy your tickets before, the price is £7.50.

Happy Halloween everyone! Have fun!

Emilie CAILLETEAU

Living in Scotland at the moment I heard a lot about the Brexit situation, it is a very hot topic especially over here where 62% of the voters voted to remain in the European Union.

I thought I should ask one Scottish and one English friends there thoughts about the Brexit.

I have asked them three questions :

• What do you think about the Brexit situation ?
• Do you think that Scotland should leave the UK to join the EU back ?
• Do you think that leaving the EU will impact your life ? If yes how ?

Ailish 18 years old, form Isle of Bute (a small island on the west coast of Scotland) :

« I was not in favour of the Brexit vote as i voted to remain as part of the EU. I do not feel like Britain will be able to cope without some support from the EU, however, i have never lived in a Britain that was not part of the EU so i am somewhat inexperienced in a way.

I do not believe this would be the right time for Scotland to be independent from Britain. The EU have made it clear they would not welcome Scotland back into the EU even if we were independent from Britain anyway. In 2014 i voted for Scotland to be independent but that was because we would still be part of the EU. I do not believe Scotland would have the resources to survive on it’s own, separate from Britain and the EU.

I believe Brexit will have an impact on my life, especially as a student. When i get into my 3rd or 4th year i may get the opportunity to study abroad, like Alexandra. However this will be made more difficult and more expensive as it will not be as simple to travel abroad. »

Chris, 21 years old, from England :

” Terrible, I expected us to stay in and found out that we’re going to leave. Very disappointed.

I’d prefer Scotland to stay with us, but seeing our current situation, I wouldn’t surprised if they leave, it’s their decision after all.

To some degree, yes I think there will be a difference. Travel will be more expensive, and international job opportunities might be a little more awkward than if we were still in the EU.”

alouedec

This year Abertay University proposed a student trip to the Glenturret Distillery. The trip costs £19 per person and it includes the bus, the visit of the distillery and a tasting session. You can also take a picture of the World’s largest Whisky bottle!

The World’s largest Whisky bottle !

The Glenturret Distillery is located on the banks of the Turret River in Crieff. It was established in 1775 by John and Hugh Drummond and was originally called Hosh. At that time it was a single malt distillery, and it was the first to use the pure waters of Turret Burn. It adopts the name of Glenturret in 1875.

Since 1993, the distillery belongs to Highlands Distillers which was bought by Edrington Group in 1999. Neil Cameron is the distillery Manager since 1997.

The Glenturret Distillery with its 240 years of experience is the Scotland’s oldest distillery.

It’s the most visited whisky distillery with 80 000 visitors each year.

Glenturret Distillery

The 5 steps of the fabrication of the whisky:

At Glenturret Distillery, the whisky is still made by hand, it’s the only Scottish distillery where traditional methods of whisky production are still used.

• The Milling

The Glenturret Distillery buys its malt at the company Simpsons Malt and take its pure water in the Loch Turret not far from the distillery.

The malt is ground in the grist mill until it resembles coarse flour.

• The Mashing

The mashing is done by hand, in a hand-operated mash tun, with a wooden rouser. The Glenturret hand-operated mash tun is the last remaining in Scotland.

This method enables a better control of the mash which enables to have more sugars and so more alcohol.

• The Fermentation

For the fermentation, the Glenturret Distillery uses wash backs made from wood.

The distillery have a long fermentation time of up 100 hours which enables to have particular fruity characteristics.

• The Distillation

For the distillation, the Glenturret Distillery uses traditional copper stills.

The particularity of the Glenturret distillation processs is that they run their stills very slowly which it allows to make spirit sweeter and lighter.

• The Casks

To finish, the Glenturret distillery adds some water from Loch Turret to reduce the strength of the new make spirit, and the spirit is put into oak casks. The casks are stocked in warehouses and are left undisturbed until the whisky is matured as they wish.

About 70% of the production sold is single malt, the rest is Glenturret, Malt Liqueur, Fairlie Liqueur and Famous Grouse.

Emilie CAILLETEAU