Greenock is a gateway town on the River Clyde. It sits in the heart of a former ship-building region. Greenock is where emigrants for North America departed. Greenock is 45 minutes from Glasgow, but since we are spending a whole week in Glasgow later in our trip, we decided to explore Greenock itself. Waiting on shore for us was a HUGE walking kilted man, very cute, and many other real men in kilts and with bagpipes.
Greenock has great views over the River Clyde. Hoping to catch a look at Dumbarton Rock as we pass it when leaving this evening. Here again are lots of statues and sculptures. There is the sculptured bow of a ship with the words TRUST and PROSPECT and a statue to James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, very near to the house where he lived. There is a sculpture of the men of Clyde pulling a propeller and the Free French Memorial anchor. At the Custom House is a great Victorian Clock.
We walked into town to purchase maps of Scotland and to procure some UK pounds from the ATM. As we left Greenock aboard the ship, we could almost hear the old-timers calling, “Haste ye back!”
Speaking of old-timers, there’s nothing like boarding a bus in Ireland or Scotland and having the gentleman sitting in the front seat say to you, “Hello, your loveliness.” What a way to start the ride.
While in Greenock, I saw a Pound World (like our Dollar Stores) and a sign that said: Stop Knives, Save Lives. So interesting that it's knives over here that is the main concern, not guns.
While watching the lifeboat drills, a tugboat pulled up tentatively to the circle of lifeboats and Ray told this whole story about how the tugboat wanted to play, too. It was very cute.
picture of the cute kilted man--until he started walking with his head bobbling all about and was quite possibly the scariest creature on earth!
