It probably isn’t often that a museum about the vehicles that ferry us from A – Z is added to a jolly holiday itinerary. Granted, we’re probably not normal – hello London tube – but when we had 48 hours in Glasgow unwinding from our epic Skye roadtrip we were rather fascinated to see what the European Museum of the Year 2013 had.
May I present to you 18 reasons that you should visit the Glasgow Transport museum.
1. Four separate people enthused about this museum the second I mentioned we were popping into Glasgow.
2. Horse drawn taxis.
3. It’s absolutely free.
4. Double parked steam train engines
5. A WALL OF CARS
6. Bicycle wielding storm troopers – every 80s kids dream.
7. Free tours with passionate volunteers
8. The world’s biggest ship model collection – In the Clyde Room was a display of some 250 ship models, representing the contribution of the River Clyde and its shipbuilders and engineers to maritime trade and the Royal Navy, including the Comet of 1812, the Hood, the Howe, the Queen Mary, and the Queen Elizabeth and the QE2.
9. A ceiling suspended velodrome of bicycles.
10. Did I mention the CEILING SUSPENDED VELODROME OF BICYCLES.
11. A plethora of retro cars
12. It’s free.
13. A mock Victorian Street complete with faux horse-drawn carriages.
14. Video recollections of Chopper Bicycles (as a foreigner I didn’t really get the excitement, but the little boy in Mr Kiwi was thrilled)
16. The lifesize replicas of Clockwork Orange, the unfortunately nicknamed Glasgow Metro system.
15. Permutations of the cool Glasgow city crest.
16. The incredibly striking Zaha Hadid building, designed because the old building was allowing condensation in and corroding the priceless artifacts.
17. The ship in the harbour outside.
18. Rainy day activities – we thought we’d pop in for half an hour after catching the small bus from the centre of the city, but after assurances of the ridiculously friend bus driver (Toto, we weren’t in London any more…) we spend about 3 hours before hunger pangs struck.
Each of those 4 people were absolutely correct.
