Day 2 (September 15, 2025): Glasgow

 (by Amina, João, Greta)

Today, we visited the city center of Glasgow. In the morning, we had breakfast and then started our program at ten. We walked about half an hour from our hostel into the city. Several groups had prepared short presentations about different aspects of the city. One group presented the history of Mackintosh, a Scottish architect, in front of the original willow tea rooms building. He was famous for his organic forms, inspired by nature, and minimalistic, geometrical shapes. There were two presentations about the Merchant City and the tobacco lords of Glasgow. They taught us that the tobacco trade helped Glasgow grow its infrastructure and caused an economic boom, but still at a high ethical cost, because of its ruthless exploitation of slave labour. One presentation took place in front of the Gallery of Modern Art; the other one used the house of merchant John Craig as a scene.

After all these presentations, which we really enjoyed, we had a lunch break. After about an hour of individual lunch, we met up again. There had been rainy spells from time to time but by that time it was raining strongly. Still, we started walking to our next stop. We paid a quick visit to the oldest house of Glasgow, “Provand’s Lordship”. It was interesting to see the way it was built and the antique furniture inside. Having a break from the rain for a while was also nice.

After the rain had stopped, we walked over to the Necropolis. We climbed up the steep hill of this ancient graveyard, again in the pouring rain and strong wind. When we reached the top, we were able to look at most of Glasgow, especially the oldest parts of town, built around the cathedral of Glasgow. The next group then had their short presentation of the Necropolis, and we learned many fascinating things, like the number of graves, some people buried there and that the people who were too poor were simply all buried on one “pile” underground without any headstones.

After this last presentation of the day, we had some free time to explore Glasgow some more or go back to the hostel. We could also buy our lunches for the next day, and it was fun to have a look at English supermarkets in comparison to Swiss one’s. Glasgow proved to be a really beautiful city with many opportunities to shop or simply look at the architecture. At five o clock, we all met up at a Thai restaurant to have dinner together. Even if it was almost a bit too early to eat dinner, the food was still delicious, and the place had a nice atmosphere. After our dinner, some of us went to a small fall fair we had found. It was not quite as big or crowded as the Basel fall fair, but it was still fun. Some were walking around some more, while others went home. We ended our evening with hanging out in the common room, playing table tennis or sharing some photos of our day with each other. All in all, it was a fun day, where we could explore freely and learn a lot.