London to Glasgow

We wondered whether we would be able to leave this morning but, thank goodness, Wendy's attack of vertigo she suffered a couple of days ago has diminished and she felt she was fit enough for the journey, even though she hasn't totally recovered.

The weather was spitting with rain when Audley arrived to take us up to King's Cross for our 1pm train. We had to go via Edinburgh, then change trains for the 70 minute journey to Glasgow, because of engineering works taking place on the West Coast line over the Bank Holiday weekend.

We boarded the train at 12.40pm, leaving our bags in the baggage car. We were in first class and enjoyed two rather good complimentary sandwiches as we made our way via Grantham. South of Newcastle, we passed the Angel of the North by sculptor, Anthony Gormley.

At Newcastle, we crossed the Tyne.

After a brief stop at Newcastle, we pulled out of the station and had this view across the Tyne of the Sage Gateshead concert hall and cultural centre.

Our next stop was Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England, where Wendy took this photo as we were about to cross the Tweed.

After another hour along the North Sea coast, we arrived in Edinburgh at 5.30pm. We had less than fifteen minutes to get our bags and change platforms to catch the 5.42 to Glasgow. We somehow managed it and, as we reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, the weather improved and there were some sunny spells.

At Glasgow Central station was this big countdown clock to the Commonwealth Games which start in July.

It was a short walk from the train across the station concourse into the Grand Central Hotel.

We checked in and went to our room on the 3rd floor, which was large and well-appointed - I suppose it should be, considering it was costing £235 a night!

I switched on the TV to watch the first few minutes of the Champions League final between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid. We then walked past the entrance to the Central Station, on our way to the Cafe Andaluz tapas bar, where we had eaten on our last visit to Glasgow.

We had a really excellent meal. I kept tabs on the football score and, as the game went to extra time, we were able to walk back to the hotel in the rain, to see the final ten minutes, during which Real Madrid scored three times to win 4:1!

Tomorrow we have a lazy day walking around the city, including seeing the tragic sight of the fire-damaged Glasgow School of Art.