Glasgow Necropolis and Cathedral [a fun family day out with death and religion!]

In my mission to cram Half Pint's entire summer holiday into two weeks, I also managed to cross off goal #80 Visit Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis as well.

The Necropolis is somewhere that has always appealed to me, given that I've been fascinated by burial grounds since childhood (I've been to the Catacombs in Paris twice) and this place is like the Las Vegas of graveyards.  It isn't death so much that draws me, but how the dead are marked.  What interests me more than the Victoriana of the Necropolis is the sheer one-upmanship and extravagance of the grave monuments - the flagrant show of wealth and excess poorly disguised as respect for the deceased. Seeing it recently on a show on Sky hosted by Alan Cummings (love) reminded me that I had always meant to visit, which is how it ended up on my list.

The Cathedral is in the same area of the city.  I'm not religious but I do like a good cathedral.  I love stained glass, and you don't find much better than the glass in God's holiday homes.  I find the ostentatiousness of those buildings is the sort of beauty that just wouldn't work anywhere else.  There's almost a campness about how over the top cathedrals can be, but with enough oppressive stonework to scare that sort of thought out of you. 

I think for both graveyards and cathedrals it is the silence and atmosphere of reflective thoughtfulness that I like most of all.  As soon as you enter it is as if the world outside disappears, everyone automatically talks in a whisper and you find yourself thinking of something deeper than the usual mundane day-to-day stuff...or is that just me?

Not that I could lose myself in the atmosphere on this particular trip, having a wriggly baby with me!  The staff in the cathedral were very helpful though and kept Mini Milk's pram behind their desk so we could have a proper look around, which was good otherwise we wouldn't have seen much of the place.  We wound the visit up when he started shouting da da da into the silence of the lower church, though in hindsight maybe he was just saying hello to the holy father dada...? 

But joking aside it really was beautiful, as was the necropolis.  We had a good wander around, though some paths were better than others for dragging a pram over.  The views across the city alone were worth the visit, but I loved reading the old graves and seeing the OTT monuments and crypts too.  Half Pint was more interested in the restoration work being done on some of the more dilapidated tombs though...I think  he was hoping to see some zombies dug up by accident!