National Route 75: Maryhill to the Falkirk Wheel

Green and pleasant land behind Possil

After 2 months of rain we get an outbreak of sun and so decide to ride to the Falkirk Wheel, a route along the Forth and Clyde Canal to it's meeting point with the Union Canal.

We start at Maryhill (with a few of the usual confusions over direction) and are soon upon the first attractions of the route. The back-ends of Possil and Milton amaze us with their country-like greenery. For those who don't know Glasgow: these places have never had anything good said about them; they are synonymous with gangs, crime, drugs and deprivation. The canal-side is busy with groups of men, all 'taps aff', some fishing, some exercising the family staffie, some peeing in the bushes. It's your typical Glasgow summer scene, but weirdly lacking in threatening behaviour or violence. Maybe it's too early in the day, or maybe it's the shock of the sun, but everyone is cheery and pleasant.

We continue along, enjoying the flatness of the towpath. In the long straights we try out our top speeds. I am sure the un-named bike is faster than Thor, but he gets away from me every time. We stop for lunch on a pleasant bend and enjoy our repast (big thanks to Big Jamie at Cafezique).

Lunch: Thor, the canal, the never-absent-from-a-Scottish-lunch tablet, me enjoying a sandwich

After lunch we come across some fine planting. Gardens have stretched up beyond their bounds and have given the towpath a bit of their exuberance. Thank you gardeners of the canal-side for this surprise.

Finally, some hours after setting off, we reach our destination, the Falkrik Wheel. It's an amazing piece of modern engineering joining the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal. There are some small versions of proposed larger kelpies here looking majestic. The Wheel itself has leapt directly from a Picasso sketchbook.

The view from above the Wheel, where the Union Canal reaches an end in mid-air, is spectacular. On this day you could see all the way to the Cobbler. Amazing. And to top off the amazingingness of the amazing day, we caught the train home and all the staff of ScotRail that we encountered were friendly and helpful. Maybe they were from Possil.

Blythswood Square blues: fine weather continues

In celebration of the recent fine weather, and indeed in celebration of other long standing fine things, we ride over to the Blythswood Square Hotel for a meal. The blue sky holds clouds that fail to produce anything more than three drops. Blythswood Square is a Georgian Square made up of four identical classical terraces, it was completed in 1823. One of these is now the Hotel, and our destination, but was previously the headquarters of the Royal Scottish Automobile Association.

Glasgow sky: saltire blue over the Blythswood Square Hotel

We find the free parking opposite the Hotel empty. Car parking charges in this area are pretty steep, but it doesn't seem to have caused many to use their bikes instead. Perhaps people drive in honour of the the history of the Hotel, as high temple to the car it was also the start of the Monte Carlo Rally in 1955.

Looking at a Glasgow sky: clouds nae bother

The restaurant is not busy so we get a window table which gives us a clear view of our bikes, as well as the garden in the centre of the square. We start with champagne and then select from the fixed price 'market menu'. Except I go off-piste for the dessert selection and try a wasabi panna cotta with warm chocolate sauce and lemon doughnuts. I love all of these elements in themselves but am still undecided about having them together. It's not that I didn't like it, more that my brain didn't want to consume all flavours as one and kept separating them out which makes for a kind of disjointed flavour.

The market menu is good value at £20 for three courses and we both enjoyed our choices. The menu is short, only three options in each course, so it needs to change frequently if it they are to get me as a regular repeat visitor. There are more options if you go à la carte, and this is where I found my desert. But here there are too many choices here for me. À la carte has three categories: classic, contemporary and grill. It's all a bit confusing, or lacking in cohesion. Actually not unlike my dessert and not unlike the room itself; a classic ballroom with grand proportions filled with tweed covered furniture but divided by a contemporary mirror-tiled square arch. On the plus side, the tweed is beautiful and the service is friendly.

Menu choices at the Blythswood Square Hotel

After lunch we take a close up view of the garden in the middle of the square and find it typical of a private garden: surrounded by high fences and locked gates. A sign attached to the fence explains that recently the garden was open to everyone but because of the 'selfish few', who used the garden as a protest site, it is now locked. I think this may be a convenient excuse for the owners. The high railings and secure gates around the garden went up last summer, long before the protesters turned up. It seems kind of contradictory to be building high fences at the same time as professing to be opening the garden up  (you can see the old gates on the street view on Google maps). With or without the protesters it does look as if the owners were looking to exert tighter control over access to the gardens. I'd like to know how many days this year the gardens open, they could have opened all this last week except for the fact that it wasn't summer.

Difficult to meet: conditions under which the gardens will be open