Best Day Trip to Glasgow, Scotland

Best Day Trip to Glasgow, Hairy Coos and all!

When planning a trip to Scotland, it is very hard to choose between visiting Edinburgh or Glasgow. We decided to make our home base in Edinburgh, and it is just under a two hour train ride, we decided to take a day trip to Glasgow. We used Trainline to book our trip from Edinburgh to the Queen Street Station in Glasgow. The train departed at 7:30 am, so we got to Glasgow around 9:30 am so we would have all day to explore.

Glasgow University

Glasgow University Hall

The first place on our list was the University of Glasgow. Glasgow University was founded in 1451 and is a World top 100 university; and a World top 20 for sustainability according to their website.  While Harry Potter was not actually filmed here, it is said to have inspired Hogwarts. It was only about a 10-15 minute walk from the train station, but we stopped by a cafe, The Alchemy, for a warm coffee since it was a rainy day. After refueling with caffeine, we headed to the university, which was just as beautiful on the outside as it was inside. 

Beautiful flowers and trees surround every entrance and the courtyard does look like you stepped into a Harry Potter movie with the old columns and doors. As we wandered around, we found a free museum that is open to the public. It’s the Hunterian Museum and what a wonderful accident that we stumbled upon such an amazing place. They have exhibits about early life in Scotland, along with Scottish pioneers in the medical industry. I would definitely recommend checking out this museum if you have time during your stay in Glasgow.

Glasgow University Courtyard

The sun started to come out as we headed to the city center for lunch. The Glasgow subway station is very easy. There is an inner and outer circle, and it is only about $5 for a day pass. We shopped around a bit and ate at the restaurant BreadMeatsBread.

Pollok Country Park

 Our next destination was a park called Pollok Country Park known for having the Highland cows, or hairy coos as they call them in Scotland. This turned into quite the adventure for us. Our waiter at the restaurant recommended taking the subway to the Pollok shaws west stop and walking from there. We knew we were signing up for a hefty walk, but it was even crazier than expected. The subway let us off at a neighborhood park in which we followed the path until we got to the freeway overpass. Once we crossed the freeway, we thought we were almost there, but that was just the beginning. 

There was a grassy and hilly area that had signs for the park so we thought we were going in the right direction. We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. We walked through a forest of trees and at this point there were no signs anywhere.  Turns out we walked about an hour in that direction before we had to cross the street to go to the entrance of the park (or what we thought was the entrance). We walked up to the country club part of the park, how far could it be? Now where are those cows!!!

Pollok Park, Glasgow

I do admit this park is beautiful, but with 361 acres comprising the park we should have made a better plan instead of deciding to wing it.  We walked on the side of the street parallel to what we thought were the woods, down a windy street with no sidewalk and through quite a bit of mud.  We walked for what seemed like another hour, before finally seeing the Pollock House (which is now closed and of course we really needed to use a bathroom about now!).  As we approached the house we saw a couple pull up in an Uber! We just started to laugh because we walked over 2 hours, and with the humidity we were struggling.

Highland Cow at Pollok Park

So now we asked the Uber couple for directions, and we ended up seeing the whole field of cows. There was one very close to the fence, so we got to see her up close! Overall, it was a very fun experience, and one we will laugh about and truly not forget, for many reasons.

Go here for Pollok Park website: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/pollokcountrypark

After the cows, we decided to head back to Edinburgh, so we took the shuttle that the park provided (of course we didn’t know this until after our hike!) to Pollock Shaws West train station which then led us to the Glasgow city center, and changed trains to head back to Edinburgh!

Glasgow University Entrance

Overall, this was the best day trip to Glasgow and it is a very fun place to visit for the day. We would love to spend more time in this wonderful city in the future and discover more amazing sights of Glasgow.

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