After a good sleep, we headed out to find breakfast – a 25 minute walk down to the River Clyde, and along a bit. The mist was hanging over the water and the sun was warm, but at zero Celsius it was slightly cold! We stumbled across a section of river wall covered in graffiti, apparently something that’s encouraged in specific locations.
Breakfast was excellent – I had a Vietnamese coffee (made with condensed milk) and Jo’s food was basically a breakfast burger.
Then a wander around Glasgow until lunch. We stopped at Barras market, with stalls of every single kind of thing for sale (including some large spiders in frames), found one of the old and remaining Glaswegian police boxes, a jewellery shop with two windows in which were (I estimated) £30m of gems – one ring alone was £350,000 – and Glasgow Central station.
Lunch was at a place called Katsu. Whilst they had no melon soda (strawberry only) the food was superb. After lunch we wandered back to the car, and found another statue with a cone on its head – this time a mural.
From Glasgow we headed west, to Ardrossen, the port linking the mainland to the Isle of Arran. Whilst waiting to board we had some pre-baked cake from home, and apples from M&S which were apparently pink inside.
The crossing to Arran was extremely calm but action packed. First dolphins and whales which were about 200-300m from the boat (so very hard to see, let alone photograph), then multiple sightings of porpoises near and far from the ferry. We’ll get some better pictures on another crossing, maybe.
Once ashore, we found our hotel in a village near Brodick, called Lamlash. Nothing too exciting, more rooms above a pub, with live music until 10pm.
Then we drove back into Brodick for dinner. We had a couple of potential places in mind, neither bookable. Fortunately the first choice was nearly empty – but incredible food – we shared tartaflette and croque monsieur, then had a creme brulee each. Tiny restaurant, probably 16 seats in total, with a chef in a tiny galley kitchen.
On the way to the restaurant we saw a small group of people gathered on the shoreline looking at something. Turned out to be a juvenile harbour seal, which couldn’t care less about the people taking pictures. On the way back to the car it was in the same area, but on the nearby rocks – cleaning itself, generally hanging out. This time no people – just us.
Breakfast – Scran & Roadie, Glasgow
Lunch – Katsu, Glasgow
Dinner – The French Fox, Isle of Arran
Hotel – Glenisle Hotel, Isle of Arran