“Glasgow is back,” says Gavin Bell, our expert. “Once the second city of the British Empire, when its shipping, industry and commerce circled the globe, it has reinvented itself as a cultural powerhouse of music, creative arts, theatre, design and innovative cuisine.”
It is architecturally impressive, with “a wealth of extravagant Victorian buildings in red and blond sandstone… Italianate palazzo facades, Art Nouveau reminiscent of Gaudi, and classical Greek and Roman motifs”, and is a “sociable city that has always known how to party”.