From Edinburgh I stopped at Lanark by train on my way to the Glasgow airport.

At the Lanark train / bus station on a Wednesday morning I asked a bus driver if there is a bus to New Lanark, and she suggested that I took a cab.

So I just walked to the New Lanark WHS.

I have to say I did not particularly like this site, not because I disagree with OUV or because I didn't find anything interesting, but because of some strange atmosphere.

First, what was that huge souvenir shop that looks like a supermarket and that sells things totally unrelated to the site??? (This shop may have opened recently.)

Second, I seriously felt that people who worked there were unusually unfriendly, beginning with the lady at the visitor center. I was about the only tourist when I got there at 9.30, and everybody avoided eye contact with me and said nothing to me as I walked around, as if they didn't want to start working that early in the morning. Are they so underpaid? The clerks at the supermarket were also unfriendly; they don't like tourists probably because when the dust settles after tourists leave, they have to clean the dust!

Third, after all this I did not even care for the ice cream they claimed they had created in order to fund their projects. It's probably the same ice cream I had at the Derwent Valley Mills WHS anyway!

I understand that these industrial heritage sites restored for tourism often have difficulty in determining how to use the space no longer used for its original function. So this site installed several attractions, a huge cafe and even a hostel all for school children, and a supermarket for their teachers / parents.

But, unfortunately, I have to say this site looked as though the heart of restoration had gone awry.